


Spiral Down and Back Around

by seademons



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Requited Love, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-20 17:50:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4796666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seademons/pseuds/seademons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I just want someone to say to me,<br/>"I'll always be there when you wake."<br/>You know I'd like to keep my cheeks dry today<br/>So stay with me and I'll have it made.</i><br/> </p><p>AU where Josh doesn't go through with the prank and instead of betraying Sam, he relies on her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stay with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talverrar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talverrar/gifts), [spellslots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellslots/gifts).



She’s in bed, breathing softly and rhythmically, unaware of his half-open eyes roaming over her, tired but sleepless. He’s not in bed. Whose bed is this? He’s standing in the small gap between his side of the bed and the window next to it. Maybe not his side, but the empty side, now. His back is up against the glass and his eyes are low, laying on her. Her rosy face, framed by chiseled locks of golden hair that cover her pillow, shining and glistening in the moonlight two feet in front of him. He can’t help but notice the stray curl that peeks into the neckline of her night gown, almost pleaching with the delicate bobbin lace that adorns it. From there, his interest shifts to her wide décolletage. Her light skin, so soft to the touch, so plain. Its milky tone disappears underneath the light blue satin of her gown, hinting cleavage, almost hidden by the covers. The covers that he fumbled with while getting up a moment ago. Why did he get up? He’s exhausted and should be in bed. His bed, not this one. Maybe this is her bed, in her room. But those are his covers, the ones above her, keeping her warm. If the covers are his, then he should be underneath them, with her. His heart suddenly jolts for attention.

He would. He would love nothing more than to just join her, hold her and cuddle her to his chest; feel her breathing against his skin and her arms around his waist, her fingertips tracing down his spine as they drift off to sleep. That’s right, he’s up because he can’t sleep. He hates it. He hates a number of things and laying awake in bed, waiting for dawn to break, alone with his thoughts is one of them. Rain makes it better, sometimes. It distracts him from himself. Sometimes, it adds a background track to the puppet show inside his head when it bleeds out of it. Horrifying hallucinations of his sisters, bleeding and deteriorating, right in front of him, talking to him, ordering him to run errands. He’s the puppet, really, and the rain covers up his sobs. Sometimes it covers up his pleas for help, too, and storms can muffle his screams like a velvet pillow. Every single episode is scary and emotionally painful and leaves him hoarse in the morning, with a wider hole in his chest, one that grows a little bit more every day that passes and he doesn’t see them. He knows that, at one point, it will just swallow him whole. He doesn’t care, not really, because if there is an afterlife, that’s when he’ll get to see them again. Hug them and hold them and tell them how much he misses them. How pointless it is to keep on breathing if he’s utterly alone, so pathetically alone that his mind has to make up people to keep him company. He just wishes to be a little saner to at least imagine regular people but he’s not even capable of that; all of his hallucinations are unpleasant and evil, when not completely twisted. It just shows how sick he is.

That’s how he knows Sam is real. Sam, snuggled up in his covers right now, peaceful and content. She’s perfect and she’s real. The room around him is real, too. It’s his. It’s his old bedroom in the lodge. His parents are giving up this place so all of his posters have been taken down and his little trinkets aren’t sprawled atop the dresser and shelves anymore, but tucked inside a cardboard box in the new house. The entire room is pretty much empty, along with the rest of the place. His bed is half full, though. He’s not sure why Sam is in his room of all places but he’s glad about that. He’s glad it’s her, too, and not someone else. Chris is the only other person that he’d be just as glad to have around, except, maybe not in his bed. He’d love to fondle and cuddle Chris but his best friend might not share the sentiment. The number of hugs he’s gotten from him can be counted in one hand, with high-fives for days, but what he lacks in physical comfort he makes up for in sympathetic aid. He’s a walking distraction with a sweet tongue and an arsenal of bad jokes that make Josh forget he’s different and, sometimes, even believe he’s normal. Chris makes him forget he’s fucked up in the head and Sam makes him forget he’s lonely all the time. She wipes away his tears when he’s sad. The feeling of her strong arms around him, cradling him firmly to her chest as she hushes reassuring hums in his hair is as close as he gets to serenity. Her presence alone soothes him; he knows he’s safe with her.

He’s safe from himself with her. The nightmares and the visions don’t stop completely but they subside and lose perseverance when he’s not alone. Right now, his eyes sting and his muscles feel like jelly but everything here is real. He really should just take a pill and get to bed, make her company. Retribute the favor. His pills are in the bathroom down the hallway, across the little mezzanine that also connects to his sisters’ old bedrooms. It’s fine. He departs from the safety of Sam’s presence, leaving the door open a crack behind himself, just in case, and steps softly along the wooden hallway floor. The lodge is quiet; there’s gentle snoring drifting up from downstairs, mingled with the distant echo of the forest animals outside, and his feet make no sound. The house is still and he feels in the wrong for being awake, for wondering around and ruining the collective placidity of it. The pills will soon revert this.

They’re sitting in the mirrored cabinet above the sink. Josh makes a point not to look at his reflection while taking the small bottle and popping it open. He downs one pill with a handful of tap water and not much trouble before stacking the rest back inside, glancing away while closing the cabinet door. He sighs. His eyelids are on fire and his limbs are numb and he just wants to be unconscious for a few hours. Not thinking or moving, just barely breathing, barely alive. Sometimes he wishes he could clock out of life altogether for a while, with no consequences or responsibilities, and maybe even come back later on, when things are okay. Less hectic. In all honesty, the only reason he’s still in this lane is because he’s too much of a pussy to take the exit. He can, right now, take the bottle back and swallow the remaining pills it has and rest. Finally, truly rest. But his hands are shaking. His hands are shaking and his palms are sweating and his heart is going a mile a second because he’s such a fucking pussy. He could do it, easily, right now, and see his sisters again. Running a shaky hand through his hair, he tugs a little, afraid. He could end everything right here. His blood pressure drops and he feels like dropping to the floor with it, but his other hand is on the counter, keeping his balance somehow. He exhales laboriously, touching his own face with cold, trembling fingertips. He’s real. He glances up at the mirror and sees his bloodshot eyes, resting atop dark circles and pale olive skin. He’s real and very tired. His eyelids are sandpaper scraping delicate skin every time he blinks and he decides to get back in bed. Meet Sam, wiggle his way into her bubble of warmth and aura of protection and finally, finally fall asleep. He’s so tired. He’s been awake for so long now, too long. The grandfather clock ticking quietly across the hall tells him that the sun will be up soon and all the guests downstairs will start making a ruckus with it but he doesn’t mind. If he gets to skip these few hours unconscious, he’s golden. It’s all he wants.

The few steps back to his room are a blur overlaid by clock hands twirling around in stop-motion until his old bedroom door slips in sight. He swings it open, locking it behind himself. It’s weird because he never does; he never even closes doors anymore, not alone, out of sheer, irrational fear that something might appear in the same room with him and take him for a chase. This time, though, Sam is here and he’s more afraid of what might get inside than what’s already in. He knows that doors don’t do anything but keep him from worrying, which is enough, so he locks it before hopping in bed. The covers rustle softly as he gets comfortable, lying right next to her, almost close enough to have her hands brush his shoulder. She’s still fast asleep, just as before he left. He’s able to smell the sweet, flowery scent of her hair and skin from here, enveloping him, soothing him. It’s calming and he feels his muscles relax as he closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song from the summary is No Rain by Blind Melon. This entire work is hugely influenced by it. Fair warning, it will get very trippy and very dark from this point forward.


	2. No rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And I don't understand why I sleep all day_   
>  _And I start to complain_   
>  _That there's no rain_   
>  _And all I can do is read a book to stay awake_   
>  _And it rips my life away,_   
>  _But it's a great escape_

When he wakes up, she’s not there. The bed is empty and the door is open. Silence. There’s nobody here, no guests and no parents, just him. No apparitions, monsters, hallucinations. He’s alone. This bed is unfamiliar and the lining doesn’t smell like her. This is his new bedroom in the new house, not the lodge. It’s sold, now. They live in Pelican Hill, now. The box of old trinkets is in one corner, peeking out of the closet and the walls are blank, untouched, with no shelves or posters. Unlike his room, though, the rest of the house is richly decorated by a big designer, so every room looks like it’s been ripped out of a magazine cover and the ultimate color palette chosen is supposed to bring calmness and peace into their hearts. It doesn’t really work, not in his opinion. This place is fake, unlived in. His parents are never around. Right now, they’re in Vancouver for a business trip and won’t be back for a while. How long have they been gone? Two weeks, three? Josh turns to his side and picks up his phone from the nightstand. It’s dead. He hasn’t charged it in some time, much less touched it. Reaching for the power cord, he remembers why. He’s been avoiding Dr. Hill. The man’s perseverance with calls and texts makes Josh want to vomit. He’s been skipping the appointments since his parents’ trip and the doctor’s been calling and texting him since then, to the point he was driven too anxious to even look at his phone anymore. Deeming it episode-inducing, he let it gather dust until it discharged completely.

It’s been quite some time since that happened. Since he’s last seen his friends at the lodge, too. He’s not sure what day it is and how many appointments he’s missed at this point, how many missed calls from them he has, so he plugs in the cord. Letting the phone charge, he gets up and draws the blinds. It’s unexpectedly sunny and bright outside, which makes him squint and hold up a hand to shade his eyes, kind of wishing it’d be raining instead. That probably won’t change today’s outcome, though. He’s more likely to just waste away anyway, curled up in bed, reading some stupid book about movie trivia and then sleep for thirteen hours. Those are his good days, when he feels like taking the meds. When he remembers them. But sometimes he forgets and sometimes he just doesn’t see the point. He sees more reason in taking twenty pills at once than only one. Those are the bad days that take him down the spiral of helplessness and fear, worsened when his sisters visit him. He wishes they’d visit him on his good days and lounge in bed while he reads to them, tells them some interesting fact about the 1980’s Friday the 13th that they don’t care about instead of terrorizing him throughout the day, following him into his nightmares.

For as much as he hates their apparitions, sometimes he misses them, because at the end of the day they’re still his sisters. Evil, distorted and twisted, saying what the real ones never would, making him hurt himself, laughing at his wet cheeks and sore throat, but making him company nonetheless. Sometimes when they’re not around for a while, because Josh’s good day streak is flowing unusually long, he skips a day and slips into Hannah’s bed, surrounds himself with Beth’s pillows and waits. One day, two, three pass. He sees Dr. Hill, pacing around Hannah’s floor and telling him how stupid he is, how very similar to suicide this is. He doesn’t listen. Dr. Hill becomes vicious and aggressive for a few days until disappearing completely. That’s when he knows he’s close. Hannah’s room barely resembles the real one at this point. The walls are mostly gone, the floors are raw and damaged and the furniture is destroyed, torn up into pieces. His head hurts, he feels feverish and nauseous. A little bit more waiting and they show up.

The whole journey is both relieving and terrifying. Josh knows how much it’s going to cost him but, sometimes, it’s worth it. He gets to see them again. They’re covered in guts and blood, sometimes an animal’s sometimes their own, sometimes they’re skinless, faceless, ripped in half, without a limb, uttering a deafening scream the whole time through. They tell him he’s pathetic, they bleed on him and fist their own guts out, making him vomit. They replay the memories of that fateful day over and over again, reminding him how pathetically fucking useless he was, how much they needed him, really needed him, but he wasn’t there to help. Worthless. It all gnaws at him, every poisonous word cleaving a wound in him, crushing him, making him curl up into himself and choke out mute sobs. It’s self-destructive and horrifying but he still does it time and time again. He’s sick.

Except now he can’t huddle up in Hannah’s bed anymore because her room is gone, along with Beth’s and the cabin. “An spiritual growth exercise,” his mother always says when asked about the sale, “it’ll teach us to move on.” Without their rooms, Josh can’t check up on them anymore, make sure they’re still missing. It’s been a habit since he once heard a strange noise coming from Hannah’s room one day and something in his brain told him that she was back, she was there and everything had been a bad dream. In their first appointment, Dr. Hill said that that behavior wasn’t healthy. His brain is playing tricks on him without him noticing and he shouldn’t submit to its every command because it’d be increasingly more difficult to tell reality apart from delusions. Josh has hated him from day one. He had also said that the change of air was good, that moving from the house that reminds him of his sisters in every tile and piece of furniture would be good for him. That it’d help him heal. That it’d be easier to keep his mind off of them but that’s not true. The new house display has too many guest rooms and none of his sisters’ belongings. It feels like something is missing, being left behind. It’s a permanent bad feeling shoved to the back of his mind that makes Pelican Hill never feel like home to him.

Not to mention how far it is from his friends’ houses. The closest of the seven to him is Mike, who’s still a twenty minute drive west, but if anything happens, he’s the one to call. Ideally, that person would be Sam but, as fate would have it, she lives over an hour away, across the whole of Los Angeles. He and his sisters used to live thirty minutes away from her, but now she’s thirty minutes away from his beach house. Much like his childhood home got sold, the vacation home in Canada got replaced by a vacation home in Manhattan Beach, an hour from Pelican Hill, but tragically close to all of his friends. He’s not sure how the “healing process” happens in this scenario because all he sees in it is pain. He sees an opportunity to live closer to his friends with a breathtaking view of the ocean, in the heart of a city bursting with life and excitement, only to stay locked away from him. “It’s a beach house,” his mother’s voice echoes inside his head, “you’re not supposed to live there forever, just for a couple of weeks with friends on vacations.” Vacations from what? He’s a drop-out. The only reason he would ever go back to college would be to see his friends again, more often. See people every day. Study, go to class, have a social life and wave people hello in the hallways. Feel normal.

He knows he’s romanticizing it, though. In reality, he’d go through the same humiliation as last time because he can’t keep up with it; the lectures and exams and an actual degree and ultimately a _job_. One episode is all it takes for him to fall right behind. It’s also the cause of much public embarrassment, especially when he forgets to take the meds or completely ignores them and still goes to class with apparitions in tow. When someone catches him alone, talking to himself, in the public bathroom or an empty classroom, it creeps them out. It’s weird and scary but too intriguing not to be spread around, and soon he’s being treated like an alien all across campus. Even his friends start getting looks just by hanging out with him. It made him uncomfortable to the point he flat out just quit.

Dr. Hill told him it was a bad idea. Dr. Hill told him that college would be a learning experience for him, with a lot of potential for personal growth, even if he didn’t feel up for taking a job just yet, and that he shouldn’t have quit. But maybe Josh isn’t strong enough for it. Maybe he’s too out of touch with society to know how to handle it. He can’t take it, he’s very weak. He’s great at hiding it for short periods of time, not five months in a row. He didn’t even complete the first semester before quitting. Couldn’t do it.

Unlike him, his friends are still enrolled. Each one of them is taking something different and conquering new friends of their own, driving around and having about as much of a good time as they did in high school. They all thought he was feeling the same, hence the big shock when he quit. They know he’s been diagnosed with depression since age nine but he hasn’t willingly updated them on that, they kind of just put two and two together: the depression, his sisters’ disappearance and his license getting revoked shortly thereafter. They don’t know about the dementia or the stronger antidepressants and how much it all _hurts_. How much of a real fucking struggle it is, every day, to live with this. Because when they see him, for a couple of days at a time, he’s fine. He’s doing just fine, he’s hiding it just fine, and they forget he’s different. No wonder they assumed he was having a great fucking time attending class when, in truth, he was bleeding from every pore at the thought of it. They never notice anything and never ask him about it because he’s that good. It’s a collectively unspoken knowledge between the eight of them.

Each rule has an exception and to this one, it’s Sam and Chris. Chris isn’t really nosey, he’s curious, and his curiosity is innocent. The rare moments in which they touch the subject are always spent alone and filled with a genuine curiosity that Josh can’t say no to, mostly because it sprouts from the lack of contact Chris has with it. He doesn’t experience any of it and it’s all very foreign to him. He’s a harmless European approaching the native tribes for the first time in the west, then coming back every now and then to visit and study it some more. He wants to learn and understand it. While Sam, on the other hand, is worried sick. She’s worried about his well-being and is the first to comfort him when he needs it. When he needs someone to talk to, he calls her. When he needs a shoulder to cry on, she comes over. He tells her about how he’s feeling more than what’s actually going on in his head, what he’s seeing, what triggered the turmoil of emotion inside of him and the tears from his eyes. She’s so good to him that it makes him afraid to say too much and scare her away, so he doesn’t really say anything. He says he’s sad, he misses his sisters, and that’s enough to have Sam pulling him into a hug, touching his hair, whispering comforting words in his ear. She’s sympathetic and kind and he loves her. He truly, sincerely loves her.


	3. It's alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And we'll all float on alright_   
>  _Already we'll all float on alright_   
>  _Don't worry even if things end up a bit too heavy_   
>  _We'll all float on alright_
> 
>  
> 
> Float On, Modest Mouse

She’s the first contact that he taps on when his phone is fully charged. He has about ten missed calls from her and thirty texts. The date says it’s been three weeks since the sleepover at the lodge, since she’s shared a bed with him. The other dozen of texts and calls are from everybody else, including quite a number of Dr. Hill’s alone, which he’s reluctant to read. His friends’ texts are endless invitations to lunch and hangout together, with a couple of concerned ones from Chris about his recent distance. Everything from Dr. Hill is about the missed appointments and the latest ones are asking him not to skip tomorrow’s. Josh sighs, compelled to reply, even if it's just with a blatant lie to stop him from messaging any more. He only hasn’t blocked this number because the healthy side of his conscience doesn’t let him. “I’ll show up tomorrow,” he writes back quickly before tapping on Sam’s contact again and calling her. She picks up in mere seconds.

“Josh, hey!” Her voice is relieved and low, almost as if she’s not supposed to be talking at all. He removes the phone from his ear for one second to look at the clock. She’s in class. “How are you? Where have you _been_?” She’s speaking fast and hushed, growing worried. “Are you okay?” She stops talking then, finally giving him a window to reply. He feels his lips curl into a smile.

“Whoa, whoa, I didn’t know I’d be straight-up thrown into the interrogation room like this. I hope I’m not a person of interest in the case.” He hears her snicker softly on the other end before her voice resurfaces.

“Of _course_ you’re the person of interest, the only one! None of us could reach you for _three weeks_ , Josh. I even called your parents. If it wasn’t for them reassuring me you guys have just been busy with the real state, you can bet I’d have broken into your room long before they reached Canada.” Her tone is jokingly but she means it, laughing. In all honesty, he’d love to have her break into his room. It would solve a handful of his problems.

“Okay, in my defense, it’s not easy to find a beach house with an integrated underground theater. I’m surprised it only took us three weeks. For the birthplace of Hollywood, architects here could use a little more cinema enthusing.” He’s lying. The new vacation house had been chosen and bought long before the lodge was sold, only fully furnished recently. His _parents_ have been busy with the real state of the lodge in these last few weeks, not him. He’s been lazing around since the dawn of man.

Still, he laughs. But she falls silent. Even if only for a second, it’s a second that gets him wondering what her face looks like. If she can see through him. “A beach house?” She says carefully and he can pin-point her interest, “Did I hear you right, Joshua?” He exhales quietly, relieved, because she’s unsuspecting. He smiles.

“Oh, did I finally spark your interest, Sammy?” His voice is low in mock sensuality and she hums on the other end, keeping the joke alive.

“You sure know how to, honey,” she says in reply with a voice as smooth as silk, a little throaty, just right, that makes his heart skip a beat. He laughs, because he can’t keep this up, not for long, it’s too much, and she snickers a little bit.

“Alright. I have the keys, if you wanna see it. It’s pretty sweet.” He prides himself in how nonchalant he can sound sometimes.

Her response is near-immediate, “I’d _love_ to,” and he can picture her smile around the words. It splits a grin in his face. “Can I pick you up in two hours? We could have lunch somewhere nice before checking out your beautiful new house.” _Yes_ , is his immediate first thought. _Please_ , is his second.

“Sounds good,” is what he says. “Make sure to bring a bikini because not hitting that beach is outright sinful.” She laughs so abruptly that it makes him laugh, too.

“Will do.”

Immediately after they hang up, he showers, shaves, combs his hair and changes into something nice that matches his trunk shorts. With wallet, phone and keys safely tucked in his pockets, he goes down to the kitchen. The wall clock above the sink says he still has half an hour before she arrives, so he opens the fridge for a quick surveillance. It’s half full of disinterest, ranging from fresh vegetables to spoiled fruit, as fresh as something three weeks old can be, and beer. His eyes catch a glimpse of some yogurt cups stacked up on the top corner as he reaches for the beer, ultimately changing course for them. The expiration date on the bottom says they’re no good but he considers one of them anyway. Peeling the top off and setting the cup aside, his phone rings before he can find a spoon. It’s Sam, thirty minutes early.

“So, change of plans!” She starts off, cheerily, “I _kind of_ bragged to everyone that I’d get to see you today and now they all wanna come along. Do I let them, do I not, do I tell them about the _place_?” His chest fills up with air and he’s suddenly very flattered. The guys want to see him. In one hand, of course they would, they’re his friends, but on the other, it’s still kind of surprising. He’s not used to being the center of attention.

“Sure, that’s cool, bring ‘em over,” He says, weighting his words to sound carefree enough, “And tell them about the beach house, yeah. They’ll be jealous if you don’t.” He’s smiling a little as she breathes out a short laugh.

“They were jealous I’d have you all for myself.”

The doorbell rings forty minutes later. He gets up from the kitchen counter, giving the trashcan a glance in passing, almost regretting having thrown out the yogurt. He did it to avoid ruining his appetite for lunch. She said that they were eating something before hitting the beach and, hopefully, that part of the plan hasn’t changed. His stomach echoes soft whines down the foyer as he reaches for the doorknob.

Swinging the door open, Sam’s smile is the first thing he sees. “Hey!” Her face is a quick blur of pink and blonde as she rushes him into a tight hug, one that he reciprocates on the spot. “I’m _so_ glad to see you.” She says into the crook of his neck before pulling away to look at him, grinning wide.

“It’s been three weeks, Sammy, not three years.” He replies around a smile, making her stick out her tongue at him.

A loud honk comes from across the lawn and he notices that she parked on the street rather than in the circular driveway leading to the front door. Mike punches the horn again while Chris sticks his head out of the backdoor window, cupping his mouth with both hands. “Come on, Cochise! Let’s go!”

“Where is this babe of a beach house exactly?” Mike asks once everyone is seated and the engine is running. He’s glancing over his shoulder at Josh from the passenger seat. Josh takes the keys from his pocket and jingle the bunch in front of his nose, showing them off.

“Manhattan Beach.” He has a sly smirk on his face as the words leave him. Mike’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and his jaw drops, forming an O shape with his lips.

“No way!” Comes Chris’s input from beside him, basically sitting with his back to the window to face him fully.

“Wait ‘til you see it, bro. It’s pretty hot.” He says while twirling the keys around his finger. He’s not a natural boaster, in the sense that he doesn’t take pride in his parents’ money, but he’s not exactly humble, either.

“I fucking bet it is.” Mike’s twisted around on the passenger seat now with his upper arm resting between him and Sam, his elbow on the top of her seat, so he’s facing them better. “How’s the sunset there?”

Josh shrugs in reply, putting the keys away and keeping both hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. We haven’t had time to actually spend there yet. Maybe we’ll find out today.” He glances behind Mike’s head at the rearview mirror, at Sam, but she doesn’t see it.

“I’m sure it’s gorgeous,” she says anyway, as if on cue, and he can see the smile in her eyes.

“Wait, the house is furnished, though, right?” Chris jumps in with a worried look.

“Yes and it has all the modernities a man needs: good signal and better Wi-Fi.”

Chris closes a fist and pulls it toward himself at his reply, celebrating.

Lunch is quick and much more populated than he thought it’d be. The eight of them are there and they all manage to squeeze together in one big booth at the far end of the diner. Everyone’s happy to see him and very excited about the beach house. Jessica, for one, will not sit still; Emily can’t stop talking about the ocean, addressing no specific target, just whomever is listening in general; Ashley keeps elbowing Chris on the side and enthusing him about the sunset, how beautiful it must be from the second floor; Mike chimes in on their conversation every now and then to agree with her and then say something about the light reflecting in the ocean, which gets Emily nosing in and further addressing Mike about it; Matt is mostly quiet, listening to whomever is talking, making comments and remarks at all the right moments; Chris is stuck in a loop of trying to get Josh talking about _anything_ , literally anything, just get him talking at all, as if he just needs to hear his voice, but eventually getting elbowed in the side and forced to talk about the sunset; Jessica is pretty much listening to everyone and actively participating in every parallel conversation that’s going on, somehow succeeding in all of them; and Sam is sitting beside him, happily squeezed between his side and the wall, with a huge grin on her face, watching everybody’s happiness radiate and reflecting it all back at them. She’s shining bright next to him and he feels as if he might be shining, too.

The positive energy that his friends fuel him with gets him smiling and making jokes all day, passing movie quotes back and forth with Chris, competing fiercely against Sam to see who can say the cheesiest line and overall enjoying himself. Really enjoying himself, being glad to be alive and experience all of this. He feels surrounded, important. Sam squeezes his arm under the table, Chris drapes an arm around his shoulders as they leave and nobody can stop talking about the beach house on the short ride over.

The only thing that effectively shuts them up is the actual sight of it. It’s as if the size and general proportions paralyze them right in place. Josh unlocks the front door and swings it open with an exaggerated flourish that only Mike is composed enough to retribute, bowing back of his own volition. The other six need a longer moment to take it all in, but Mike and Josh spare no time in getting right inside.

“This is fucking insane,” Mike says as they stride across the foyer toward the sitting room, where the double glass doors are, guarding the beach. His eyes are wide and full of wonder at the view out the glass doors and surrounding windows.

“You should look at it from upstairs, man,” Josh comments while unlocking and sliding the doors open, “It’s even nicer.” Mike glances at him with such a genuine shit-eating grin that Josh can’t help but mirror.

“I can’t believe this,” Mike says in a breathless tone, pressing an open palm to his chest while following Josh onto the back porch overlooking the sea, “I can’t believe I’d fall in love at nineteen and with _such_ a nice house. I don’t know how to say it, but,” he turns to Josh, touching his shoulder with a hand, “Josh, dude, can I have the hand of this place in holy matrimony? Jess will have to understand.”

Josh laughs, kicking off his shoes as Mike does the same. “Only if you promise to treat her nice,” he says back and barely even finishes before Mike is nodding profusely, cutting him off with a thousand different sounds and hums of approval that have him laughing as consequence.

By the time everyone shows up on the porch, the two of them are waist deep in the sea. From their point of view, it’s a mess of flying clothes all over one another that miraculously end up hanging on the handrail, turning it into a drying rack. It’s almost scary when they all start running across the beach toward them like a pack of animals but war only truly begins when they reach the water; every breathing target is executed and no alliances apply. Sam is the first to splash Josh in the face and let all Hell break loose. She’s the most persistent one, with a special jumping ability where she tackles people from behind, using her tiny body and the great gravitational pull to bring them down. Jess is right alongside her, possibly the one who scores the most people right in the eye, also dodging the most attacks. Emily is the one who whines the most and barely gets a hit in. Mike is the guy who splashes water too hard on people by accident, and too much water, repeatedly, almost drowning them where they stand. All in good fun, though. He’s also the one who holds people’s heads under the water the most. Good fun. Ashley, Matt, Chris and Josh are all good sports who laugh more than actually splash each other and only really do it because they get hit first. Usually by Sam. In her jumping attack, she surprises the victim with a headlock from behind, instants before she drags them down into a crumbling and wildly unsuccessful barrel-roll. Both Chris and Josh are her main targets, mainly because it doesn’t work on people around her height and Mike is the only muscle mountain that can revert it into a piggy-back ride, shortly followed by a backdrop into the water that ends up being more violent than intended. She almost drowns but it’s okay. They only stop nearly killing each other when the sun begins to set.

Mike’s been waiting for this. He goes back to shore with Jess and they sit down on the sand for a comfortable view. He’s leaning back on both hands as she rests her head on his shoulder. Chris and Ashley do the same, except not on dry sand, but in the muddy one where the last of the smallest waves die. She’s absently poking the mud with her toes, actually focusing on the sunset, and he’s sitting still next to her, trying not to glance at her little feet too often. Matt and Emily go back inside the house to finish an argument featuring the sunset in the background and Josh has trouble catching it at all, with Sam blocking it from him with her big head. They’re the only ones still in the water, despite having drifted closer to shore, and she keeps swimming in the space between him and the view of the sun.

“Great shot from here,” he says, catching her attention and making her turn her head around, “Truly picturesque.” He’s smiling and she looks confused for a second, then her brows shoot up and maybe she doesn’t catch the irony because her cheeks redden. She parts her lips to say something but quickly closes them, directing a sheepish look away from him. His throat closes and his heart rate doubles because he’s such an idiot. She’s so pretty, so precious, and he’s so stupid. What a lame fucking pickup line to say and by accident, too. He’s the worst. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” He swallows thickly, probably more uncomfortable than her, and, as if to prove his point, she smiles. Small and heartfelt, accompanied by one of those looks of hers, the ones that make him stop breathing. Forget to breathe altogether because she’s stunning. Absolutely stunning.

She remains silent and he’s still knocked out of breath while she inches closer, swiftly, clipping the distance between them to none and sealing it with her lips against his cheek. She’s warm and soft and he wishes she had kissed his mouth instead. But it’s real, her lips on his skin, and it ends just as he starts slipping his eyes shut. “You’re the sweetest, Josh.” Her voice snaps his eyes back open, despite being the softest he’s ever heard from her, the most tender and sincere. He turns his head a little, towards her, and they’re standing so close. The spot where she kissed is burning a hole through his cheek and he wants it on his mouth, too. Yet, he can’t bring himself to do it. He can’t bring himself to lean a couple of inches forward and do it. Kiss her. Just, kiss her. Her glossy lips are right there, waiting, and she smiles. She smiles like she knows. She probably does, too. Josh wouldn’t be surprised.

With the sun gone, the wind picks up, except colder. They hear Jessica complain about it from the shore, followed by the rustles and splashes of people starting to leave. Sam takes his hand as they walk back inside, kicking water around themselves and baking their feet in mud. It’s simple and pleasant and Josh wants to lace their fingers but, instead, he just tightens his grip a little bit more. She doesn’t seem to mind.


	4. Worse than you would ever know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Oh, it should've been, could've been worse than you would ever know._   
>  _Well, you told me about nowhere well it sounds like someplace I'd like to go._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Dashboard, Modest Mouse

They let go of each other at the porch to get dried and dressed before stepping in. Except, as they step in, reality bends. At the sitting room, Josh sees Matt’s body hanging from the chandelier, his jaw pierced through by one of the golden branches, dripping fresh blood to the floor. It’s an image that comes as a flash, lasts one frame, and is gone before he can understand it. Matt is patting Mike’s shoulder with an awkward smile in the exact same second, alive, breathing and right there. They’re talking; each person is saying something different but it all blends together into a big, unintelligible noise that means nothing to Josh. He needs to get away. He circles around everybody and starts for the nearest bathroom. It’s a short walk that should give him no trouble, and it wouldn’t, if he could just _stop_ seeing the corpses of his friends with each step forward. Mike burning alive, Emily with her face bashed in, Jessica without a jaw, beheaded Ashley and Chris, Sam with an open abdomen and guts pooling out.

He’s nauseous, pale and trembling by the time he makes it to the bathroom. Splashing water on his face solves nothing and resting his head in both hands is just as fruitless. The world spins around him, almost spinning him with it, and he squeezes his eyes shut to try to stop it. Useless. His knees buckle a little as he bends over the sink, holding himself up with both forearms onto the counter, pressed against himself. He feels so, so sick and dizzy. “Fuck,” his small voice dissipates in the vast expanse of the bathroom, inaudible outside of it.

“This has never happened before, has it?” Dr. Hill’s disembodied voice bounces off the expensive tile walls, surrounding him, chilling him. “You’ve never fantasized about your friends’ deaths before. Quite a first.” His eyes are closed shut but it doesn’t stop Dr. Hill from materializing regardless, giving his voice a figure. He sits in an armchair in the center of the bathroom, right behind him, with a cup of tea in hand. Lifting it to his lips, he hides a smile under the rim. “You’re thinking about actually showing up tomorrow for the appointment.” He gives a short, witty laugh before sipping on the tea. “By all means, be my guest.” His voice drips with vile indifference and Josh hates it. The apathy carves wounds in his chest, bringing the nausea back twofold. Uncaring and unconcerned, Dr. Hill sighs, watching the bottom of the cup while swirling its contents around. A loud groan leaves Josh as he forces himself to retch instead. “You want to tell me about this, this new happening, new abhorrence.” Dr. Hill finally looks at him, still indifferent. “You should, hm?”

He waits patiently as Josh heaves into the sink, breathing heavily for a second before replying with, “Maybe I will.”

“Well. Go on, then.”

Dr. Hill holds firmly to his clipboard, watching Josh with keen eyes. His other hand rolls the fountain pen between two fingers while waiting.

“It’s...” Josh starts but immediately scraps it, licking his lips, glancing behind Dr. Hill’s head to better rearrange his thoughts. “I want to say it’s weird but all of this is weird,” he restarts sincerely, hovering his eyes along the wide bookshelf that adorns the entirety of the furthermost wall in the office, “It’s different. It’s different from the visions of Hannah and Beth, too, because they didn’t talk. They didn’t move, either; it was like flipping through a scrapbook of dead friends.”

Dr. Hill is taking notes now, nodding ever so often to keep him going. He glances down at his lap, lacing both hands together.

“There isn’t much else to it, just that. It only happened once.” In his peripheral vision, he sees Dr. Hill look up from the clipboard and rest an arm on the desk.

“What happened after that?” The fountain pen wags and Josh squeezes his hands, shrugging in reply.

“Nothing. I went back to the living room and the guys ordered pizza.” He glances up to see Dr. Hill nodding slightly, barely moving at all.

“But did you see anything else? Your sisters, maybe?”

He shakes his head and his eyes shift to the fabric on the back of Dr. Hill’s chair, a dark velvet. Comfortable, too. He moves both hands to touch the seat of his own.

Uncrossing his legs, Dr. Hill sits straighter across the desk from him, with eyes skimming the clipboard. He remains silent for a second, blinking down at the page. “Yesterday,” he begins calmly, thoughtfully, “Did your friends do something to hurt you or something you’d want them to pay for?”

Memories of first hearing about the prank that caused his sisters to run off into the woods immediately come to him, fill his lungs with a repressed anger that colors his face red. That was a year ago, though. Not yesterday. Yesterday was good, yesterday he was happy. Yesterday they felt as close to him as they were before the missing person posters redecorated Blackwood Pines.

“No,” he says, but the look in Dr. Hill’s eyes tells him he doesn’t need to answer.

“Are you still considering going through with the prank?”

Josh’s heart hammers against his ribcage at the question, making his cheeks burn shamefully. He averts his eyes from the doctor’s face. “No, I can’t,” his voice is small in the silent office, “I can’t do it.”

“Just like you couldn’t kiss her,” Dr. Hill’s voice is dark and vile, setting fire to his face and closing his hands in fists. “How much more alarmingly pathetic do you need to become for your parents to realize that they have a chicken for a son?” Something closes in his throat and his chest stops expanding but he holds the burning glare on the doctor’s face, who retaliates with a cold, scrutinizing look. His jaw is set and his brows are furrowed and he’s so _angry_. “Would you be feeling this way if I were telling you a blatant lie?” Dr. Hill remains immobile, standing dead ahead of him, and his heart drops. “To be fair,” he starts in a condescending tone, gesturing vaguely with a hand, “you’ve really outdone yourself this time, I’ll give you that.” It takes a moment for Josh to notice that he’s gesturing at him, his general direction, so he glances down. He glances down and he sees blood. On the floor in front of him, hiding under his knees, dripping from his hands and covering his arms. His shirt is soaked and his shorts are ruined. His hands start to tremble. “It further proves your idiocy, don’t you think?” Dr. Hill crouches before him, not touching the mess, simply observing it. “Dumbass,” he hears the word echo around the room, unsure of where it comes from, if from the doctor or one of his sisters or even one of his friends. His heart kicks into full gear, working hard to keep pumping more blood onto the floor, using him as a fountain. He’s trembling and weak and afraid. His eyes gloss over and his cheeks are wet and the tears make small dots in the red between his knees as they fall.

He’s alone and the lights are off. His arms are numb, his neck stings and his stomach _hurts_. The first thing he does is hug himself because he’s shaking. The violent, uncontrollable sobs shake his shoulders and constrict his chest to a third of his original size. He’s terrified. His throat hurts from the strain of choking back air and his eyes are completely useless at this point, barely able to make out his phone from the silver tiles underneath it. He reaches a hand and messily palms the floor for it. Mike’s number is the first thing that comes to mind so he calls him, holding the phone to his ear with trembling fingers.

“Hey, man,” comes Mike’s nonchalant voice through the receiver, deep and laid back, “what’s up?”

Josh inhales long through his mouth, trying to steady himself enough to speak, enough to form words. “Mike, I,” he fails. He’s cut off by a badly repressed sob that shakes him and, suddenly, he’s very aware of being in danger. “I need you to come over. Right now.” His voice is damp and desperate, drowning in itself, but gets the message across because Mike’s replying in the immediate following second.

“Hey, hey, Josh” he sounds alarmed and scared. He believes him. “Dude, hey, are you okay?” The worried tone passes the feeling over to Josh and his veins go cold, his heart hurts. He fails to hold back the gross sobs and sniffles now.

“I don’t know,” he says and he means it. It’s all a very confusing blur to him. “I don’t know, Mike, there’s so much blood. Everywhere, man, I don’t,” he breathes in deeply, choking, “I don’t know. I don’t know, just, just _please_ ,” he breaks, “Please come over.” He’s crying over it but can still hear shuffling and stomping from Mike’s end, interlaced with short breaths and huffs.

“Josh, Josh,” Mike’s voice is clearly nervous but he still tries to make it sound reassuring. The thought warms Josh’s chest. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll be there in a second, I promise. Hang in there, it’s okay.” Mike is panting a little and a loud thump overlays the last of his sentence, followed by the sound of engine frantically starting. “Talk to me, man. Where are you?”

Josh glances up at the white counters of his kitchen and white walls, whiter ceiling. White chandelier, shining in silver and dangling diamonds. “Pelican Hill,” he says and the words sound cold in his mouth, metallic.

“Okay,” Mike’s voice is still a little hushed but not as shocked as before. He handles himself better than Josh ever will. “Can you do me a favor?”

Josh closes his eyes and nods a little, tightening the hold onto himself before saying, quietly, “I think so.” Somehow, he’s a little less distressed now. The thought of Mike worrying over him and being so quick to help is soothing for some reason, maybe because it means he’s not alone through this anymore. Mike’s voice is right there, making him company, calming him down, and soon he’ll be here in person.

“Can you look yourself top-down and tell me where the blood is coming from?” There’s still an edge of fear to his voice but overall he sounds surprisingly composed. Maybe he knows what he’s doing.

“Okay,” Josh says before unfolding from himself, carefully doing as requested. Mike echoes a soothing okay back at him while he wipes fresh blood from himself, smudging the dried bits around and analyzing his broken skin. “My left arm,” his voice is shaky, floaty, “my left arm is a fucking mess.” There are three visible cuts on the outside of the forearm, almost resembling claw marks, and one deep gash on the inside, next to his elbow, running halfway down toward his hand. The sight shocks him.

“Can you press down hard on it?” Mike’s voice is confident and Josh hopes it’ll pass some of the feeling onto him, too. He props the phone between his ear and shoulder before complying with a positive reply. “Okay, good,” comes Mike’s voice, calm and comforting, “Stay like that, alright? I’ll arrive in just a second, I promise, but I have to hang up now, okay?” His heart rate is only a little erratic, his cheeks are considerably dry and his breathing is almost completely under control. He might be able to do this. He might be okay.

“Yeah,” he replies, tightening the hold on his forearm until his knuckles turn white, “but do me a favor first.” Mike’s silent for a moment before telling him to continue, so he does. “Keep this between us.”

Silence. Awkward, worrying silence. “What?” It finally comes, after a long second, and Mike almost sounds angry.

“For now, please.” He tries to sound sheepish, helpless, when really, he’s just scared. He’s scared of what the others will think, what Sam will think, and what his parents will say, what they’ll do. This wasn’t a break-in, the knife is right there, right next to him, giving him away with a dull shine. They can’t solve this with more alarms and security cameras or the highest technology in the world. Unless, maybe, that technology is poking his brain back in place. But even that might turn out to be a bust like everything else.

“I can’t promise that,” is Mike’s reply and it sounds definite. Josh gnaws on the inside of his cheeks.

“Just, try. Come on, please,” and that’s all he says because there’s nothing more he can hope for, really. Mike has done so much already that if he outright says no, Josh won’t argue with it. He’ll understand. Mike is still much in the dark about this whole thing and could probably use of moral support from someone not involved. He truly believes that Mike will turn him down but then he hears a frustrated sigh from the receiver. Frustrated and submissive and he knows it’ll be okay. He knows he called the right person. So he thanks him, raw and sincere, before hanging up.

The phone drops to the floor, sliding across the puddle he created, and he doesn’t care. He needs to get the door open. He needs to get up and unlock the front door for Mike. Digging in his stained shorts for the keys is no problem but actually moving to stand on both feet turns out to be a chore. His muscles are weak, rendering his legs unfit to support a hundred and seventy pounds. Still, he tries. He grabs the closest counter and hoists himself up, moving with trembling arms and shaky legs that eventually get him all the way across two rooms to his objective. Two long, meticulously cleaned rooms, now disgustingly gruesome. Unsteady hands paint the doorknob red and he can rest. He slides down the adjacent wall, slipping his eyes shut.

When he opens them again, he sees a light green ceiling, a striped green and cream wall, and a wooden strip where they meet. He’s in the living room downstairs that nobody ever uses, the one with the pool table that’s never been touched. Glancing to his side, the pool table comes into view to prove his point. Glancing to the opposite side, there’s the back of the couch that his parents hate but all the guests love. He never knew that it’s actually pretty comfortable. His parents wouldn’t know because they’ve never touched it.

They’re still in Vancouver. If this is Thursday, they’re scheduled to arrive tomorrow afternoon. That means he needs to clean the kitchen and foyer soon, right now. Before attempting to get up for that, though, he lifts up both arms and glances himself down. The blanket falls to the floor but he’ll just pick it up later. His left forearm is bandaged almost completely, the right one has just a regular Band-Aid on it, the top of his stomach is wrapped up in gauze and the side of his neck is peppered in Band-Aids. Did Mike do this? He moves to a sitting position on the couch, slowly, mindful of all the bandages. The living room door is open, leading to the foyer, which is far too dark to see anything. There’s only one source of faint, white light in the house coming from the moon, seeping in through the windows but not too helpful. He sees nothing, hears nothing. The air is still. “Mike?” He calls out and his voice is hoarse, so he clears his throat before repeating himself, a little louder. His heart skips a few beats, ready to sink in disappointment.

A grunt comes directly from behind him, so he turns around to face it, with his heart skipping beats for a different reason now.

“Uh, hey.” Mike is lying on the other couch in the dark, under the windows across from the door, and sits up a little at the call. He stretches some, groaning, then rubs his eyes with a lazy yawn. Josh smiles. “How are you feeling? Great couch, by the way. A straight ten.” He grunts some more and clears his throat, swinging both feet off the side of the couch. It looks like he’s been here for a while.

“I’m fine. Uh, did you patch me up?” Josh’s voice is small and thankful. He can see a tired smile on Mike’s face.

“No, the ambulance took you to the hospital. I didn’t let them keep you there, of course, but while we visited I learned a couple of things about you. So did the doctors. It’s some pretty surprising stuff.” Mike rests both elbows on his knees and leans forward, watching him with a soft expression. “Do you wanna know what I learned?” The question is rhetoric but Josh shrugs in reply anyway. Mike smiles joylessly.

“I learned that there’s more in your head than what you tell us.” His face is grave, his voice is serious and his eyes show concern. A lot of it. There’s a brief pause before he resumes, “You need someone, a friend. Obviously, my lips are sealed if you don’t want me telling the guys but I won’t pretend that I don’t know. Not to you.” Josh drops his gaze to the floor next to Mike’s boots, in silence. He continues. “They let me read your file, you know. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but,” he shakes his head, motioning vaguely with a hand at nothing in particular, “I was so worried, man. I thought you were fucking dead. When you said there was a lot of blood you weren’t fucking joking.” Josh’s stomach churns and he swivels back around, facing the open door rather than Mike because he can’t look at him. He’s growing sick again. “I kept my promise, though. That one I didn’t make? I kept it. We’re the only ones who know about this, now I want you to tell me why that is.”

The moment Mike is done speaking, dread fills his chest up and drowns him. He doesn’t want to get into it. At least, not right now. There’s an entire kitchen to clean, among other, less important stuff. Like his phone and clothes. He notices that he’s been changed out of those and is in a pair of clean pajama pants instead. No shirt or socks but the blanket was keeping him warm while he slept. He picks it up from the floor and tosses it back over himself.

“You know, this is some heavy shit,” he finally replies, hugging the blanket closer to himself,  “And I just don’t think all of them can take it, so I didn’t tell. I mean, how do you think fucking Ashley would react to this? Emily? This is insane, man. It’s literally insane.” He sticks an elbow on the back of the couch, resting his face in that hand. Mike is silent. “I’m _lucky_ that you live the closest to me. If Matt was my next door neighbor, I still wouldn’t have called him. You know how to take this shit better than anyone.”

Silence. Not awkward this time, just speechless. From both ends, until Mike scoffs. Josh turns back to look at him. There’s a sarcastic smile on his face, subtle but present.

“I really convinced you with that tough guy bullshit? Jesus, I didn’t believe it for a second,” he shakes his head, scoffing out a laugh, “I was _petrified_. Almost broke the wheel in two and crashed the car.” He covers his mouth with a hand and glances down at the floorboards, studying the fine polish, contemplative. Josh shifts in his seat to face him fully, open-chested, and Mike’s eyes flick back up at him. “So, you gonna tell me what happened or did I just drive out here to call an ambulance and mop up your kitchen?”

Josh opens his mouth to reply but it ends up just hanging there, wordless. It takes his brain a second to kick into motion because Mike cleaning up lakes of blood from his floor and walls is too much. He nursed him, dressed him, watched over him and _also_ cleaned up the place. Might as well put a ring on this man.

“That’s how it is, huh? Some Thursday night.” Mike bounces his brows once, jokingly, before getting up and stretching some more, popping bones.

“Are you for real, man?” Josh’s voice finds himself again and Mike shoots him a smile.

“What, performance too above average? Make sure to give me a decent review on Craigslist, then.” He laughs by himself because Josh it too stupefied to join him. He’s got a permanent smile stuck to his face, though, which Josh is unconsciously mirroring.

“A perfect score, seriously,” he says, watching Mike snicker, “would hire again.”

Mike takes a couple of steps in his direction, bending down a little but not once at eye-level with him, saying, “you call my services after six and I have to charge you overnight. That means I’m crashing here until morning.”


	5. Sanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _All I can say_   
>  _Is that my life is pretty plain_   
>  _You don't like my point of view_   
>  _You think that I'm insane_   
>  _It's not sane... it's not sane._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> No Rain, Blind Melon

Despite the house’s full size, Mike knows his way around enough to get to the guest rooms by himself and wander out to the kitchen or bathroom, or even Josh’s room if he needs him, but Josh still shows him around anyway. Maybe he just wants to prolong Mike’s company for another minute, maybe he’s scared of being left alone and somehow repeat what happened earlier. He still doesn’t know how it all came to be but if he has to guess, everything always comes down to the neglected pills. They must have medicated him while at the hospital because he feels vastly more stable than earlier and his sleep was dreamless, exactly how he takes it.

“Hey, man, if you need anything just call for me, alright?” Mike says sincerely as they stand by his guestroom door. It feels like he’s the host tonight, in every single way, and he kind of is. “Not just right now but I mean in general, too. I wanna make sure you’re okay,” he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, sighing tiredly as Josh nods, “you really scared me there. Are you gonna be alright?”

Josh gives him a perfectly reassuring smile before clasping his shoulder with a hand, receiving a smile back, less sure of itself but existent. “Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he says and Mike nods, turning to step inside his room.

“Oh, and,” Mike interjects quickly, turning back around, “I know we’re both spent right now but I still want answers to some of this shit, like what exactly happened tonight and why, so tell me some time, yeah?”

Josh nods firmly this time, and meaning it, too.

He’s not sure when exactly that will happen but he certainly will tell Mike more about it, at one point or another. Not during breakfast the following morning or over the phone in the next few days, but eventually. He means to do it and when the right moment arrives, he will. He has plenty of opportunities during the weekend and the beginning of the next week but it just feels much too soon; too soon to relive the emotional hazard that he’s still not completely over yet. His friends are too busy this weekend to hangout, which he’s thankful for, but Mike keeps in touch with him anyway, through texts and calls, asking if he’s alright, how he’s doing. He just says he’s fine because, really, he is, for the first time in a quite a while, actually, but he leaves that out. He asks after the other guys and Mike updates him on some inside college stuff, mainly the notorious stories that everyone’s usually talking about over the weekend, from anger outbursts in the classroom at their assigned group project to Chris and Ashley’s slowly increasing relationship status. Apparently, this is another Emily week where she’s on-and-off fighting with Matt and nobody can mention his name without her throwing a tantrum about it. Josh would rather carry his parents’ bags upstairs than be on the inside of that story, to be honest.

He ends up doing just that, too. They arrive as scheduled but his mother is very busy on the phone and his father is very tired, so he offers to carry their bags to give them a break. His mother locks herself up in her office with the phone glued to her ear while his father lounges in the upstairs living room, the one that they actually inhabit, watching baseball recaps and the news for as long as his eyes will let him. Neither of them notice anything different, in the house or on him, so he doesn’t open his mouth. He sits in the couch with his dad and they make small chitchat about their separate month. When asked about his friends, Josh tells him that they visited the house in Manhattan. That gets his father’s interest and has him asking what they thought of it, the location, decoration, room placement and view. Josh gives him all the good news until the man is satisfied.

He stays on schedule with his meds over the weekend and even feels in a good enough mood to accompany his parents to the golf club, despite none of them actually playing there. His parents hit the club every once in a while only to socialize with the annoying neighbors and questionable friends, sometimes even coming across an undesirable coworker that ends up ruining the rest of their day by joining them in every activity, at their request and insistence. This time is no different and they accompany a couple of their neighbors through thirty-six holes and the same amount of uninteresting subjects. Josh gets to drive the caddie for them and ends up just staying in it for pretty much the whole time, wishing they wouldn’t chat so loud and make eavesdropping so easy. He doesn’t know who half of the people they bring up are but still hears about their most shameful secrets and general gossip.

Gossip seems to be these people’s specialty, too, because it’s all they talk about. It almost looks like they naturally whisper while talking from the amount of gossip that leaves them. They’re so into it; so quick to ask the Washingtons if they’re in the know of anything that they might have missed.

“Did you see that ambulance on Thursday?,” the man asks while they all walk back to the caddie and climb in, “I think it stopped in your street.”

His parents look shocked, as evidenced by his mother’s trademark hand over mouth and his father’s feigned gasp.

“We were in Vancouver this whole time,” his father says, turning to him as he starts to drive toward the next hole, “did you see anything, Josh?”

He shrugs, perfectly nonchalant. His blood pressure is six feet under and his pulse is through the roof but he’s good at showing none of it. “I saw it but it ran past our place, straight down the street,” he says, making a point not to glance at anyone through the rearview mirror. He can feel their eyes burning through the back of his head.

“It might have stopped at the Smith’s,” says the woman, sounding pretty confident in herself, “because of their nutcase of a daughter.”

The air grows tense. He feels his cheeks pump hot in his face while taking the right turns on auto-pilot.

His mother clears her throat delicately before saying, “What do you mean?”

The man chimes right in at the opportunity to keep the gossip alive. “Oh, haven’t you heard?,” he says in a faux grave tone, “Their daughter is very problematic. Her medical record is miles long. One of the nurses at the urgent care told me that she’s been there three times already, on suicide watch. Maybe she’s finally done it.”

The wife clicks her tongue at him and Josh can see her batting him on the arm from his peripheral vision. “She’s not _dead_ ,” she states rather indignantly, “if she wanted to die she already would have; what she wants is attention.” She gives her husband a look but nobody dares say a thing, not even him, so she continues. “I blame her family. Do you know them, Mrs. Washington? No? Well, you’re not missing much, they’re a weird bunch. Oh, darling, did they confirm for tonight?” She grabs her husband’s arm to get his attention and he nods as Josh parks the caddie.

“Yes, they called on Wednesday. Would you three like to come, too? We’re hosting a dinner at our place, at eight,” he says while exiting the cart alongside the other three. Josh stays seated, watching his parents mutter a noncommittal reply before rushing them to the hole.

He’s sweating. His heart is running a marathon and his hands are gripping the wheel as if it’s a cliff and he’s hanging off of it. He only lets go when his left arm starts to sting, reminding him that he’s about as much of a nutcase as someone’s daughter down his street. He wants to cry. He glances at his parents and the other couple as they chat away, pretty far from the caddie now, and sobs. He rests an elbow on the wheel, hides his face in that hand and sighs softly, a little strained. He’s frowning and his jaw is set, his chest is tight, his throat is closed but the tears don’t fall. It just hurts. A small whine escapes into his hand as the other one closes, fisting the side of his shorts, threatening to rip a hole in it. He forces in a deep breath, exhaling it shakily, attempting to control it. It’s okay, it’s fine. He’s fine. He breathes in and out, slowly, patiently. He’s okay. He has to believe that for just a few more hours, just until they get home. He can collapse there. He can hide in bed until he’s really okay. He blinks and breathes, he’s fine.

He runs a hand through his hair, glancing down at himself. His phone is with him; he can call someone. Sam. Fishing it out of his shorts, he lights the screen, being welcomed to a few message notifications and one missed call. It’s from Dr. Hill. He feels compelled to call back and ask what he wants, so he does, and the doctor picks it up at the second ring.

“Ah, hello, Joshua. How are you feeling?”

He rolls his eyes. Every phone call and every text message from him feel like an extra session. “I’m fine. Did you call?”

Dr. Hill hums from the other end, not affirming or denying anything, just neutral. Josh waits. “Yes, I did,” comes his feeble voice, very calmly, “the hospital called me on Thursday to ask about your medication. They told me what happened.” Josh lifts his free hand to his head, throwing a quick glance at his parents’ direction and saying nothing. Dr. Hill continues, “Now, we could talk about this over the phone or schedule a separate session earlier this week, apart from the usual time. Which do you prefer?”

Josh drops that hand to his mouth, still in silence, thinking. Misleading his parents about the reason why he’s visiting the psychiatrist twice this week is easy, it’s no problem. The real question is if he’s up to it. He hasn’t had much time to cope with what happened on his own yet and he’s not sure if he can relive it. He really, kind of doesn’t want to. He knows he should, but. Fuck. “Can’t we just have a double session on Wednesday?” He doesn’t want to. The regular sessions are bad enough already on their own; enduring two in a row is suicide.

But then again, he’s not too much of a stranger to that.

“I might actually have the time for it, yes,” Dr. Hill says in a contemplative voice, remaining in thoughtful silence for a second, probably consulting his schedule. Josh can see the two couples gathered up in a tight circle by the hole, fiercely gossiping each other’s ears off. It makes him sick. “Yes, that’ll do. I’ll see you then?” Josh confirms it before hanging up. There’s still some time until the appointment, which is more than enough for him to come to terms with it, accept it, be ready to suck it up and go through with it. He can do it.

One call done, some texts to go. Unsurprisingly, they aren’t important at all; it’s just the group chat spamming him with stupid bullshit in the middle of people’s confirmations for the Halloween party. That’s right, the party. Some friend of Emily’s is hosting one this year at their family’s unused storehouse in Winchester. It’s been said that these parties are notoriously creepy and Josh’s counting on that, so his costume will fit in nicely. He’s been working on this one since last year, since Sam pretty much chose it for him. It was a joke, really, because it’s such a tough one to make look legit. She came up with the dare to see if he could craft it, test his special effects skills, which he accepted on the spot. It’s largely complete at this point and, modesty aside, it looks pretty good. He’s very proud of it. His dad helped him here and there with it, sure, but mostly just giving him tips on how to proceed when he got stuck, so the final product is all him. He can’t wait for her to see it.


	6. Where to now?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Well, the lampshade's on fire when the lights go out_  
>  _This is what I really call a party now_  
>  _Well, fear makes us really, really run around_  
>  _Ah, this one's done so where to now?_  
>     
> Lampshades on Fire, Modest Mouse

Group chats are the most impractical place to have a direct conversation with someone and get instant results, so he just private messages Sam instead. She’s active in the chat right now, discussing the Canadian wildlife with Chris while Emily, Mike and Jess talk about their plans for the after party and Matt and Ashley have a contest of who can find the prettiest bird to change the icon image to. Matt is currently winning with a blue jay.

Josh: Hey Sammy are you going to the Halloween party?

**Sam** : Duh!! Of course!

**Sam** : And you are too!

Josh: Well yeah I didn’t spend a whole year making this mask not to wear it.

Josh: Wear it and scare the panties off of you!! So get ready.

**Sam** : Oh damn I better choose a nice pair then.

**Sam** : Ps you don’t need a mask for that.

Josh: For what?

Josh: See your panties or get them off?

**Sam** : :P

**Sam** : Did you see the group chat about the after party sleepover?

Josh: Sure.

**Sam** : I kinda wanna offer my place but idk I think my roommates will mind.

Josh: Isn’t Jess hosting it?

**Sam** : Not anymore because she lives way too far so that’s out.

Josh: You know if they need a place it can literally be at either of mine.

**Sam** : I think Emily’s parents will let her host it but your generosity will not be forgotten!

Josh: Remember that when choosing the panties haha.

**Sam** :  Oh my god :P

In reality, he’s very excited about this. Not so much about the party in itself but more about getting to see his friends again, see her again. In two weeks. Two short weeks that, had he procrastinated with his costume, would be as good as nothing. Especially given his mental state up until a few days ago, shattered and sprawled all over the place, irrational. But he’s better now, he’s better right now. He stays better through these two weeks, not skipping a dose. Having good days. Good days spent in bed reading something stupid, rewatching a movie, taking long showers and thinking about her. Thinking about her a lot.

He’s thinking about her when his parents decide to decline the dinner invitation for that night. They order take-out instead and make their own selection of critiques about the judgmental couple over it. Josh doesn’t mind because something inside of him says that they deserve it, so he silently listens to his parents talk shit, enjoying it, wondering if Sam would share the feeling. In the middle of it, they mention the “nutcase” from down the street but only to berate the other two for the phrasing, then expressing light sympathy for her before resuming their former point, even more ruthless now. Josh is done eating by then and just goes to bed wordless, uncaring, because his mind is far from any of that.

Wednesday rolls by and he’s still in the clouds, taking double doses sometimes just to make sure he’ll remain there. His parents don’t notice and don’t question the longer session, just drop him at Dr. Hill’s with two paychecks. Before leaving, his father asks if this will be a regular occurrence from now own, so he’ll adjust his timing for the pick-up. Josh replies negatively and waves him off before going inside, a little hesitant, scared of what the doctor will say, what he’ll ask about Thursday. Scared of having to hear it all back in his own voice. But Dr. Hill is cordial and his questions are more heavily centered on what happened before and what happened after, because he already knows the entrails from the hospital. So Josh tells him about the voices of his sisters urging him to do it, then disappearing, then silence, then Mike.

Dr. Hill looks contemplative. They discuss about how he’s never fallen for his sisters’ pleas before and he says it was a matter of time until he caved. The doctor falls silent, analyzing his notes, then asks him to pin-point in his story exactly where insanity ends and reality begins. He attempts an answer but it feels like he might be getting it wrong. He has a feeling that it began way before Thursday, before last week’s session, probably at the beach house. Dr. Hill nods, flipping through the pages in his clipboard.

“You did seem different last session,” he says with eyes fixed in the papers, “A little floaty.”

Josh stays silent. Dr. Hill fiddles with the papers some more before flipping back to today’s entry, looking up at him. Josh doesn’t need to say anything because he knows. He can see the fear in his face.

They only touch that subject in the next session, next week. Dr. Hill must have noted it down because his opening line is, “How long have you gone without taking your meds?”

Josh’s jaw sets. Right now, he’s back to his normal doses, not doubling them anymore in case that that might fuck something up at the Halloween party. He feels a little shaky and cold every other day but it’s probably just a side-effect from coming down from the high. He says nothing about this, just reassures the doctor that he’s been on schedule with the medication now. To answer his question, he says a couple of months, and Dr. Hill writes that down with a grave look.

But they don’t talk about it. Dr. Hill asks him about his arm instead and they discuss that for the rest of the session. It ends up feeling longer than the double session the week before, but then he’s finally free and his parents forget to pick him up. They don’t show up for another hour. Flashbacks of his father asking him about the double session plays across his retinas and his hands close in fists because he _answered_. He answered _no_. But nobody listened. He ends up perusing half of the books in Dr. Hill’s office for that hour, secretly searching for an anger management one. He briefly wishes that golf carts could be driven around regular streets, but when his father arrives he notices that he really just misses his license and the freedom that came with it.

Because Halloween this year happens to be on a Sunday, the owner of the storehouse decided to throw the party from dusk of the 30th until dawn of the 31st, allowing everyone to arrive and leave between that time, whenever they please. Emily’s parents allowed her to host the sleepover and, like the main party, the estimated time of both arrival and departure are the same. For the arrangement of their own times, the group first pointed out the designated drivers and their passengers, which turned out to be mostly alcohol-free Matt and Mike. The passengers are the people who live closest to them, meaning Mike, Chris and Josh take the Mustang while everyone else gets the Mulsanne. In Josh’s opinion, the Mustang has more backseat room to lay the chainsaw with and less people touching it, meaning Chris and Chris alone. Which can be a danger hazard on his own but Josh trusts him. Despite his really lame and obviously store-bought Ghostface outfit, Josh knows he can appreciate good taste and hard work.

“You’re so fucking cliché, bro,” he says while hopping into the backseat and lying the chainsaw across his lap. Chris swivels around on the passenger seat to ogle at him, and Josh can’t see it, but he’s sure Chris has a big, goofy smile on his face. Mike is giving him an amazed glance through the rearview mirror.

“Dude!,” comes Chris’s voice, a little muffled by the mask, “It turned out so _good_! They could cast you for another Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel and lower the budget by a hundred thousand, for sure.”

Josh laughs and Chris sticks a gloved hand in between the two front seats to touch the chainsaw. Josh lets him, watching him for a second before shaking the saw while making motor sounds with his mouth. Chris snaps his hand back, as if the thing had just caught on fire, and laughs.

“It looks so real, man, what the fuck. Can it turn on?” A Ghostface mask tilts to the side, as if inspecting the bottom of the saw where the motor used to be.

Josh shakes his head, touching it while speaking. “No, this is just the shell. The motor was too heavy and the chains were busted, so I dumped them. The chain needed to be bigger, anyway, so I made this one and attached it to the base.” He pats the bottom of it proudly and Mike snickers from behind the wheel.

“I never thought I’d be driving Bob the Builder to a Halloween party,” he says, which prompts Chris to start singing the opening theme and Josh to groan.

“Shut up, uncreative Hannibal Lecter,” Josh picks up the saw and digs the rounded tip into Mike’s shoulder, making loud motor noises, “or I’ll make you!”

Mike laughs and slaps him away, ordering him to sit back down.

“There’s a reason why I’m Hannibal, though,” he says once Josh is done jabbing the two front seats with the saw.

“What’s that?” is Chris’s immediate question.

Josh answers for him, sticking his face between them with, “Because he eats pussy.”

Chris snorts grossly inside his mask and Mike laughs, nodding vigorously, repeating, “Ding, ding, ding!”

The rest of the ride isn’t much more philosophical than this and one hour and a half pass by far too fast, having the city’s welcome sign actually shock them.

“Let’s go to the Winchester,” Chris starts as the sign rushes by, turning around to look at Josh who joins him for the rest of the quote, “have a pint and wait for this to all blow over.” Mike rolls his eyes, slowing down the car and making smooth turns while observing the city basked in the day’s last breaths of sunlight. He’s in love with every sunset.

“You know,” Chris says suddenly, glancing around himself, “This might actually blow over. Didn’t Matt and Emily have a really big fight yesterday? Ashley told me it happened right after lunch and that Jess said they haven’t talked since then. This might turn out bad. I mean, he’s driving all the other guys here, including her. I wonder what’s happening in that car right now. Not to mention that if he decides to up and leave in the middle of the night, we’re gonna have to squeeze everyone in here.” Chris lifts a hand to touch the mouthpiece of the mask, holding it there for a thoughtful moment as Josh leans forward and forces his voice into a playful tone.

“Or take the bus, you dumb-dumb.”

Chris gives him a look from behind the mask. “ _You_ don’t take the bus!”

Josh snickers a little, secretly embarrassed.

Mike rolls the windows down and sticks his head out, along with an arm, seemingly ignoring the two of them. He stays like that for a second, enjoying the view and the warm feeling of the sun on his skin before turning around to give Chris a glance. “Dude, whatever happens, happens. Don’t worry about it. Your only thought right now should be how cute Ashley must look as a zombie.” He picks up some speed while talking, making the wind gently ruffle his hair.

Chris shrugs and glances out his own window. “I was just wondering, man,” he says airily before shooting Mike a pointed look, “and she looks _super_ cute, I’ll have you know.”

She really does. She rushes over to meet them when they arrive and Chris wasn’t lying; the zombified Forever 21 mannequin look fits her well, somehow. Not everyone can pull this off so adorably.

“Hey, guys!” She interjects as they hop out of the car, then pulls Chris into a hug. Josh grins behind his mask and circles around to stand by Mike.

“You’re right, Chris,” Mike says loudly, sure to catch her attention as well, “she does look super fucking cute as a zombie.”

Ashley’s face immediately reddens as she lets go of him, turning around to hide from them. While Chris is stunned speechless, Mike takes Josh’s uninjured arm and drags him away with a wave, leaving the couple to themselves.

“Damage done,” Mike whispers to him as they start toward the Mulsanne, “one down, one to go.” Josh glances at him, surprisingly okay with being manhandled like this.

“Who’s the other victim?” He asks in a fake menacing tone, bringing up the chainsaw. Mike replies with a dirty look and smirk combination that speaks volumes and makes his cheeks burn in a heartbeat. He’s glad it’s all covered under leather. “No,” he says seriously, pulling his arm free from Mike’s grasp, “I don’t need your help.” Mike just laughs, shaking his head. Josh props the chainsaw in place with both hands and slams it into Mike’s stomach, watching him bend a little with a whiny “ow!” that makes him laugh.

He quickly skips away from him after that, reaching their friends and slipping behind Sam before Mike can get him back. She immediately twirls around, covering her mouth with a hand in surprise.

“Oh, my God!” she exclaims and her eyes are huge. “You look _awesome_!”

He grins wide under the mask, poking her side with the saw. “The film which you’re about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of seven youths,” he begins in a fake deep and evil narrator voice, making her laugh, “in particular the pretty girl dressed as Karen Cooper from Night of the Living Dead.”

She rolls her eyes with a mock defeated sigh, smiling still. “I’ll never surprise you, will I?”

He shrinks down a little bit, slouching to be at eye-level with her, holding his shoulders up and making a claw with a hand. “I’m _very_ surprised, Sammy,” he fakes a creepy voice in a higher pitch tone, inching the claw hand closer to her, “I’m surprised you’re not wearing some cheap costume from the stooooore!”

She laughs genuinely at that, slapping his hand away and fixing her eyes on his face. Still grinning, she inspects it, stepping closer to him. “Jesus Christ, it looks _really_ good. Legit scary.” The admiration in her eyes makes him smile and his chest swell with pride.

“Okay, guys,” Jessica’s voice is loud, edging on a shout to get everyone’s attention. It works. “About the timing,” she continues once they’re all looking at her, “when you guys wanna leave, get at least four people together before hitting up either Mike or Matt, alright? That way nobody is left behind.” Everybody nods at her, mumbling an agreement and she smiles. “Alright!” She exclaims, turning to Mike standing beside her, “Let’s party already.” He bounces his brows at her once before taking her hand and starting for the storehouse that’s bleeding music through the walls. Sam does the same with Josh, tagging along with the others toward the big two-story entrance doors.


	7. The Halloween Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Well, we're the human race_   
>  _We're goin’ to party out of this place_   
>  _And then move on_
> 
> Lampshades On Fire, Modest Mouse

If it looks tall from the outside, this place feels even taller on the inside. Thin wooden plaques run up to three or four stories high, cracked and aged, with old nails hanging off of them that match the rest of the supporting lodges crisscrossing each other up to the ceiling. Somewhere on the entresols hanging over the sides there’s a big stereo setup pumping deafening loud music in the air, almost shaking the boards off the walls. The freakishly tall ground floor is just as freakishly wide, without any kind of flooring, just dirt and some stomped-on hay to walk over. For a place as big as this, it’s surprisingly fucking packed. The eight of them have trouble moving in a diagonal line to one of the walls, where there’s some room for them to breathe and hang around.

“This place is huge,” Chris tries to shout over the music but only a couple of people standing closest to him get the full message, nodding back in reply.

“No wonder I can’t find the buffet tables,” Sam shouts back at him, making him nod and point an agreeing finger at her.

“Hungry already?” Josh tugs the mask up his face, to his forehead, so she can hear him better. She smiles, looks like she might be laughing. The music is too loud and he can’t tell.

“I didn’t give up fifty bucks to starve away,” she shouts with a smile, which he mirrors.

It takes a very long time until they actually find the buffet table. At first, as they can’t immediately see it, they all assume that the party just doesn’t offer anything to eat besides the tasteless crackers that they notice plenty of next to every single drink stand peppering the place. As if the storehouse runs on beer, there’s one keg every couple hundred feet along the walls, so reaching one is as easy as intended. It takes three keg stops for Sam to experimentally have one cracker, slowly grabbing more and more in the following ones. She only has one or two beers herself but accompanies whomever to the keg anyway, just to glance at the gross crackers, think about them while the person fills their cup, and eventually grab one or two before coming back.  Every time she rejoins the group with one, she makes sure to point out just how stale they taste before eating it. Josh would feel bad for her if he wasn’t having so much fun with it. Because he laughs so much at her, she makes him try one at some point, just to know exactly how bad they are, and he needs half a beer to swallow it down. Bad is an understatement.

It’s not a surprise to see her really fucking pissed when they happen to come across the buffet table by total accident. They go outside for a second to look for the portable toilets after so much water and beer and incidentally see two long tables overflowing with food instead. An incredible turn of events that makes her both angry and glad, but mostly angry because she ate packs after packs of crackers while all of this sat here. The sight of Ashley stuffing her face with chicken wings at the end of one table pisses her off, as well.

“How long have you _been_ here?,” she asks Ashley incredulously and Josh just stays on her tail, watching with a barely repressed grin, “Why didn’t you tell us?” The second question pretty much dies on her tongue when she notices Ashley’s blazed eyes and goofy smile. Sam sighs, exhausted, defeated. Josh laughs. “You know what,” she says with a renewed anger, a new passion while approaching a pile of fresh fruits, “I don’t even care. I’m full but I don’t give a fuck. See this?” She picks up a melon slice and shoves it in front of Josh’s face, so fiercely that it startles him, “I’m gonna eat this. And I’m gonna enjoy it. See all of these? Bananas, apples, grapes; I’m eating all of these. All of them.” She slams the melon slice into a paper plate and starts to fill it with the other listed contents. Josh snickers, taking a small ham sandwich for himself.

The night isn’t too dark in itself, with an open sky and a bright moon that shines along the field, but that doesn’t reach the people inside the roofed storehouse. There are no lights on in there, only the stereo and some phone screens, glow sticks and glow paint, but no effective light sources, so the outside is like clear day for them. There’s one single lamppost standing by the front entrance a little in the distance but they don’t need it. The moon and the small wall lamp next to the tables are enough to see what they’re doing, what they’re picking to drop into their plates. Josh’s chainsaw glistens in the moonlight and he lifts it to show Sam. She raises an arm in defense and flinches out of instinct, grinning at him. He laughs.

“Darling,” he says suddenly, raising his brows, then adds in the rest pointedly, “Light. Of my life. I’m not gonna hurtcha.” He tilts his head to the side, exaggerating a creepy grin while wagging the saw.

She sticks her tongue out. “Get out of here, Jack Torrance.”

They find a bench to sit on next to Ashley’s end of the table, by which she’s currently lying on the ground. Sam crouches down beside her, touching her face while Josh pokes her on the side with the chainsaw. Sam shoots him a look but it’s him who succeeds in getting Ashley to wake up.

“I’m so tired,” she mumbles softly, covering half of her face with a hand, “let’s leave.” Sam hoists her up in a sitting position and glances around, searching, which prompts Josh to do the same.

“Where’s Chris?” She asks Ashley but looking up at Josh, who shrugs in reply.

“I don’t know,” Ashley sighs, moving slowly to lie down on the bench, “probably still in the field.”

Sam frowns in confusion up at Josh but he just shrugs again, still speechless. She gets up after Ashley is comfortably passed out on the bench and takes Josh by the arm, pulling him aside.

“Why would Chris be in the middle of the corn field?” She sounds incredulous, kind of curious. Josh wishes he had an answer.

“I’ll call him,” he says instead, handing her the chainsaw and rummaging his pockets for his phone. She holds it with some trouble, resting the end on the ground.

“This thing’s heavy, Jeez,” she whispers as he punches in Chris’s number and starts the call.

“You should’ve seen it with the motor on, it was impossible,” he shakes his head at the memory, listening to the looping beeps from the other end. She makes a face at him, fiddling with the saw some more before resting it against her hip and fixing her eyes on him. She poses and he makes a circle with two fingers, mouthing “hot” at her as Chris answers. She laughs.

“Hey, dude,” Chris says, sounding worried, “have you seen Ash anywhere?”

Josh glances at her sleeping form a few feet away, in the shadows. “I might have,” he replies in a daring tone, slitting his eyes a bit, “and that might be the reason I’m calling you. For ransom, that is.”

A feigned gasp comes from the other end and Josh snickers. Sam raises a brow at him. “You rascal!” Chris says in mock helplessness, “what do you want from me, thing of evil?”

Josh grins wide, looking at Sam as she watches him with suspicion. “A virgin sacrifice for tonight’s ritual.” He tries hard to keep from laughing but the speed in which Sam’s face changes looks has him losing it. Chris just tells him to go fuck himself over the phone. “She’s at the buffet,” he informs with a laugh, “now get over here so we can start the Sabbath.”

“Prophet!,” is the first thing that Chris shouts while hurriedly approaching them, “Prophet still if murderer or devil!” He’s pointing an accusatory finger at Josh, wagging it in front of his face as he laughs. Sam hides her grin behind a hand. “By that God we both adore, where is she?” Chris makes the sign of the cross on his chest while interrogating Josh but Sam’s the one who answers him, gesturing at the sleeping form in the shadows. He promptly starts for her, looking a little worried.

“Were you just quoting something?” Josh asks while following the other two over to the bench, by which Chris kneels, looking at Ashley.

“It’s from a poem,” he says vaguely, touching Ashley’s forehead and shaking his head, “she’s passed the fuck out; I told her that smoking the second one wasn’t a good idea.” He sighs helplessly, moving up to sit on the bench by her head.

“She’s a dummy,” Josh says, ignoring the look Chris gives him. He turns to glance at Sam instead, standing beside him, still carrying the saw.

“I’ll call Mike,” she says before handing the saw back to him with a look. He takes it, lifting his brows in reply. She holds the stare. “Do you wanna leave?” Her voice is small, edging on a whisper in the narrow space between them, and he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t mind where to go if she’s tagging along, so he shrugs.

“Only if you want to.”

She keeps the stare for a longer moment, blank in thought, contemplating his answer. He doesn’t break it, blinks once, watching her until she turns around to face Chris.

“We’ll take Ashley to Emily’s place,” she says while patting Josh’s upper arm, then squeezing it, “are you coming with us?” The firm grip on his bicep almost distracts him from Chris’s defeated shrug of a reply, saying a feeble “I guess so” while getting up to his feet.

As they stand around waiting for Mike and Jessica to come meet them, Chris narrates what happened to Ashley at the field. Sometime during the party, she came across a couple of colleagues from college, the people who sit behind her in class and usually invite her into their circle for group projects. They’re not exactly her friends but they brought pot, which upgraded them to friends for a couple of hours, until Ashley had more than she’s used to and completely disappeared. Apparently, to satiate her hunger with chicken wings. Chris should have listened to the first ten times that she whined about an empty stomach to his face.

At this point in the story, Josh opens his mouth to make an inappropriate joke but Sam elbows him hard on the side before the punchline is delivered. Chris gets it anyway and his face doesn’t show any enjoyment. “What?,” Josh says jokingly but the crowd is having none of it, not even a smile, “all I’m saying is you could've used that to your advantage, you know? Filled her up, given her what she wanted. Could've done  _her_ a solid, yeah?” He gives Chris a pointed look with a grin that is responded with a shake of the head and an awkward glance aside. Sam makes a grossed out face but can’t remove the grin from it, wrinkling her pretty nose at him.

“You’re such a romantic,” she says before punching him on the arm.


	8. Too good to be true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You're so wonderful_  
>  _Too good to be true_  
>  _You make me_  
>  _Make me hungry for you_  
>     
> Why Can't I be You?, The Cure

The ride to Emily’s place is mostly silent, with Jess constantly changing the radio station and Mike yawning behind the wheel. Sam is in the center of the backseat, leaning on Josh’s side, dozing off and coming to every fifteen minutes while Chris has Ashley cradled in his arms and Josh has the chainsaw across his lap. If the car wasn’t so crowded he’d be the first to throw an arm around Sam’s shoulders and nestle her against his chest. As it is, he takes solace in the flowery scent of her hair and the softness of her skin so close to his for a little over an hour.

Upon arrival, Jess is out in a flash and knocking on the front door before the rest even start reaching for the handles. She leaves them to move sluggishly from within the warm confines of the Mustang on their own account. It seems that Emily has already left the house unlocked for them, knowing that she wouldn’t be the first to return, so they have no trouble getting inside and only a little with the luggage, mostly due to their tiredness. Carrying everything upstairs doesn’t improve their sleepy mood, either. Jess is the only one fully awake that ends up helping everybody choose a room and get settled. She drops both Sam’s and Josh’s bags in the same one before bidding them goodnight and leaving for her own across the hallway.

Josh watches her walk out for a second before turning around to look at Sam, kicking her doll shoes off while sighing. She doesn’t seem to mind sharing the room or she’s just too tired to care. Either way, she swipes her hair over a shoulder, clean off her back before turning around.

“Josh, unzip it for me,” she says with her back to him, throwing him a glance over her shoulder, “I need a bath.”

His heart goes off and his cheeks flare up but he walks over to her anyway, unable to wipe the wicked smirk from his face. “I can do more than that,” he says softly while touching the back of her dotted dress, rapping his knuckles up along the zipper. She leans her head back and their eyes meet. His heart skips a beat.

“Just undress me for now, thanks,” she says around a smile that makes him smile back, despite the jokey tone of her voice. He takes the zipper and pulls it down, slowly, lifting a brow at her. Her smile widens.

“How far?” He asks, barely audible, and she replies, “All the way,” so he runs his knuckles down the length of her back, stopping just above her waistline, where the zipper ends. Making sure she’s still watching his face, he blatantly glances down. “You _did_ put on a matching set,” he points out, tugging on the clasp of her bra and pulling it, “unless you wear matching lace every day?”

She turns her head to face away from him, shaking it, but he can see the tips of her ears the same shade of red as her underwear. “First of all, you don’t just wear lace without matching it,” she says, moving to turn around, so he undoes her bra in the split second before she twirls. One hand immediately finds her bosom and holds it as she gapes at him, incredulous. He takes a step back, raising both arms in defense, grinning still. “Second of all,” she charges forward at him with voice in mock anger, then shoves him against the door, “how _dare_ you!”

He bursts out laughing, probably mirroring the color palette of her face in his own as she grins wide at him.

“You jerk,” she’s laughing, too, shoving him again but softer this time, “Maybe I put it on for myself.”

He’s shielding himself with an arm but as her blows soften, he drops his guard, taking her free hand in both of his. “That’s a little selfish, don’t you think?” He steps closer to her, lightly pulling her toward himself by that arm but she yanks it away from him, smiling still, slitting her eyes nonthreateningly.

“I think,” she begins in a whisper, swaying in his direction, “that there’s a hot bath waiting for me and you should go have your own.”

He opens his mouth to spew out something stupid but she clasps a hand over it in the same instant, shushing him.

“Go, now.” She gives him a light push toward the door before stepping backwards over to the conjoined bathroom in the room, keeping her eyes as daggers on his face.

Defeated, he raises both palms and starts for the hallway, but not before delivering the interrupted line, “We could make this room hotter than your bath, is all I’m saying.”

She instantly points a finger to the door, raising her voice with another command for him to leave, added with one for him to clean the makeup from his arm.

He wishes he could obey her fully.

He leaves, closing the bedroom door behind himself but can’t possibly clean the scars off of his arm. They’re still recent, too; a couple from stitches, some from Steri-Strips and the rest simple Band-Aids. All that remains from the more superficial ones are their ghosts, light marks, while the one on his stomach and four on his arm are still clearly visible. He’s succeeded in hiding them under long sleeves for the past couple of weeks but tonight he didn’t choose Leatherface’s blazered outfit on purpose. He picked the short-sleeved shirt overlaid by a dirty apron because he knew he could pass the scars off as fake on Halloween. He knew it’d look appropriate on Leatherface, too. But maybe he also wanted Sam to see them. Maybe he wanted her to notice something different, wanted her to know. To find out by herself because he’s too weak to tell. To ask him about them, look at them under a nice light and see how they don’t detach from his skin, see the truth.

But she doesn’t, and he doesn’t mind, except a little bit. She was more interested in the mask that he put entire days of effort into making instead of anything on his arms that look like could be glued on in a second, as she should. She probably won’t see them again, either, because his pajama top is long-sleeved. Glancing down at himself, maybe it’s a good idea that she doesn’t know; they don’t look pretty. At one point or another last week, he removed the stitches himself, out of fear that his parents would somehow track him down to the urgent care if he took the bus there. Or maybe that the neighborly couple would see him and tell the girl down his street that she’s not alone.

The scars look gross. They’re unattractive and a little puffy and the wrong color and it all makes him sick. It reminds him of the view that day, of his arms covered in blood, dripping down to his knees, pooling around himself. It makes his stomach churn and his blood pressure drop. He leans on the bathroom wall to stay on his feet, wondering what kind of Hell Mike must have gone through to bring the white back to his kitchen. He did a good job, too, because his parents didn’t even notice. Not that they notice a lot of things, anyway.

Stepping out of the shower, he gives his reflection a glance in passing. Nothing different. He puts on his pajamas, watching himself through the mirror. Nothing remarkably different, nothing far from regular, nothing insane; he looks normal. He looks just like anybody else. The people who see him on the street, the neighborly couple from the golf club, the people at the party, they see a regular person in him. That frustrates him to no end; it fills him with anger. He hates how close he is to normalcy and yet how quickly it escapes him, how fast it slips his mind at the slightest little accident. He hates how easy it is to pretend, to fake it, to tell on the house down the street to cover up his own insanity, hide how completely messed up he is in the head. To not bring up the scars and, who knows, forget about them until Summer rolls up again, next year. And they will be gone, and Sam will never know, and everything will stay the same.

He leaves the bathroom with costume in hand, carries it to the bedroom and drops it on the floor next to his bags. Months of work just tossed around, now. It doesn’t matter. He watches it sprawl all over his belongings and Sam’s, too. Her bags are open, turned inside-out, littering the vicinity in clothes and makeup. He gathers her things in a pile not to get lost in his.

“Jeez, how many concealer colors do you need for a weekend?” He shouts toward the bathroom, snickering a little, but gets no reply. His smile slowly fades as he moves up and walks over to the bed. The first thought that hits him is that she’s mad at him, ignoring him, although that’s very unlike her. When Sam gets mad, she makes a point to let everyone know. She says it out loud. The silent treatment has never been one of her moves. Plus, she can’t be legitimately mad at him for earlier. Can she? He doesn’t know. Probably. Something tells him that he might have messed up. The thought follows him to the bed, reflects itself into a frown as he leans over the mattress to glance at the bathroom door.

“Sam?” He calls out and his voice is just a bit worried, just a bit apologetic. Silence. “Hey, Sam?” He tries again, treading toward the door now and, getting closer, he notices that it’s ajar. His blood turns into ice as he hesitates. Should he? Probably not, but the possibility that something’s happened to her speaks louder so he pushes it further anyway, slowly, fearfully, until he can fit through.

The foreboding that builds in his chest dissipates with a breath. She’s in the bath, with earphones on and her back to the door. He should have known. And he should feel glad and leave and not consider pranking her just because her guard is down. Just because she’s making it so easy to. He really should not be tip-toeing over to the bath and kneeling down behind her. But he’s so close, now, and she’s so distracted with the classical music that’s seeping through the earbuds. He braces himself. In a swift movement, both of his hands grab her shoulders as he smacks his lips on her cheek. She jumps out of her skin and shrieks and everything happens so quickly that he doesn’t see her elbow until after it collides with his nose. Hard, alarmingly hard. The pain is blinding and he’s immediately covering his face, touching where it hurts, making sure nothing is broken. He’s golden.

“Oh, my God!” Her voice is still a shriek, except worried now, and he can feel wet hands grabbing his face, lifting it. He opens his eyes to look at her and she’s frowning, so close, rubbing a thumb across his cupid’s bow. Worried. He sucks in a breath through his mouth, licking the metallic taste from his lips. Her eyes flick down, watching him for a split second before their lips meet. Fiercely, with some softness, they kiss and breathe, together. She squeezes his face in her hands and he grabs her neck with both of his, pulling her closer, clicking their teeth. He bites her lips and she tugs on his, breathing quick and sharp, holding onto each other almost desperately.

She pulls away first with a wet, popping sound that makes him want more.

“Are you okay?” Her voice is breathless and her face is flustered and her chest is bare, in full view. He can’t stop himself from immediately glancing down at them and getting slapped across the face.

“Sorry!” His eyes are shut closed as he holds both palms up in defense, hearing her huff and water splash.

“You’re such an _ass_ ,” he hears her say but doesn’t open his eyes, just in case. In fact, he covers them with both hands, not moving from the floor. He’s grinning, though. She did just kiss him.

“I just wanted to scare you,” he says in a small voice, listening keenly to the sounds of clothes ruffling and her bare feet slapping the bathroom tile.

“I hope I didn’t break your face,” she says and she sounds pissed, stomping on the floor now, “but maybe I should have.”

He pulls an exaggerated pout, pointing it in the general direction from where she’s making noise. She sighs but it sounds more like a defeated huff.

“My face hurts and it’s bleeding,” he says and she begins to retaliate, but he quickly cuts her off, adding, “but it’s okay because it’s a reminder of you.”

The comeback she had dies in her mouth and he grins in small victory. The sound of her feet stepping over to him fills his ears.

“By the way, you have a rocking set to be proud of.”

The moment the words are done spewing out of his face, he knows he should’ve kept quiet. Any sort of redemption he had gotten before is gone now as she clasps both hands over his mouth, a little too violently, making him lean back a bit. He uncovers his eyes to see her face inches from his own.

“Just stop talking,” she hisses softly, almost unthreateningly, “for one second.”

He nods behind her hand, holding the stare, watching her big, bright eyes. She nods back slowly, as if trusting him with this task, before removing her hands from him. He was hiding a smile behind them.

Sharing a bed with her this time around feels a little bit different. From the kiss, no doubt. Before that, all he thought of and felt through the night were related to the safety that she brings him, the purity of her love toward him, immaculate fraternity. Now, after he’s had a taste of her lips, he wants more. All of his former feelings for her remain intact, just more intense, more vibrant. Filled with something new and electrifying that sets his heart off as they lie down and shuffle under the covers. His mind is disgustingly lustful and he can’t stop it, can’t stop glancing at her while shimming to get comfortable, thinking and wondering and wishing. He’s barely tucked in when she scoots closer, so close that his upper arm brushes against her chest by accident and his heart breaks a world record. He’s looking at her and she’s touching his arm, whispering lovingly, “I’m the big spoon.” Her smile is amused with a hint of something wicked and he likes it. He turns around instantly. She hooks an arm around his waist, closing a hand over his heart, and one leg over his thighs, nearing his hip. He takes her hand and can feel the shape of her smile against the nape of his neck before she kisses it.


	9. The ocean breathes salty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Your body may be gone, I'm gonna carry you in._   
>  _In my head, in my heart, in my soul._   
>  _And maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both live again._   
>  _Well I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Don't think so._
> 
> Ocean Breathes Salty, Modest Mouse

The night is dreamless and restful but doesn’t carry the positivity through dawn because he wakes up from a headache. An insufferably bad one. It feels like his skull is made of thin metal and the air is filled with hammers knocking against it, shaking his brain around. He feels sick. His blood pressure drops as he leaves the bed, tripping over himself to the bathroom. His reflection is pale and weak and his legs are about to buckle underneath his own weight, so he rests both elbows onto the counter around the sink, steadying himself. Long, deep breaths. His head pulsates and he wants to rip it off. He doesn’t have any painkillers with him and Emily’s cabinets are empty. He sighs, ending up heaving instead. “Oh, God,” he whispers to himself, holding his head in both hands and slipping his eyes closed. He’s going to be sick.

“Morning sickness?” He hears from the door, laced in her sweet, delicate voice and his blood grows cold. He doesn’t want her to see him this way. “Do we know the gender yet?” She jokes and her tone is light, playful, obviously trying to cheer him up. It doesn’t go unappreciated but isn’t very effective. He’s sour.

“I’m glad it’s yours,” he says with a sharp smile directed at the sink and both eyes still closed, afraid to worsen the headache if opened. She laughs briefly, falling silent afterwards. Growing serious.

“Can I get you anything?” Her voice fails to hide concern but still succeeds in soothing him, making relief wash over him.

“A painkiller, please,” he says feebly, already feeling the headache subside from emotional support. She hums a quick agreement before leaving.

The painkiller kicks in a few minutes later, as he lounges on the floor next to his bags. He takes a double dose of Phenelzine and holds the empty glass of water in both hands, motionless, sitting up against the wall. Sam is getting ready in the bathroom with the door half-open in case he needs to call her over or wants to take another peek, but he’s fine. He’d rather not move. His eyes are open just a slit, threatening to slip closed and stay as he waits. Waits for the sick feeling at the pit of his stomach to pass, the dizziness subside and the headache fade away completely. It takes a while. He listens to the splash of water hitting the sink and the light tapping of her makeup brushes on the counter, thinking about her, imagining her. His stomach does a sudden double-take and he groans, hunching forward with his forehead pressed against his knees. He’s gonna fucking vomit.

“Are you feeling any better?” She calls from inside the bathroom and a small whine escapes him, unable to reach her. The next thing he hears is the pitter-patter of her feet on the tile, crossing the bathroom. “Do you need something else?” Her voice is closer now, inside the bedroom but still by the door. He’s sweating cold, his head is in an endless wipeout ride and he’s going to be closely acquainted with the insides of his stomach in a second.

“Yes,” he says from between his knees, “a pistol and one bullet, please.” He imagines her eyes rolling and her lips pursing as she clicks her tongue.

“Breakfast is sure to make you feel better,” she says, starting for the bedroom door, “I’ll bring you some French toasts.” He heaves at the thought, really not in the mood for eating, afraid that anything that comes in will just be spewed out, but says nothing as she leaves. Persuading requires a lot of energy that he doesn’t have at the moment so he just stays put.

Incredibly, she brings back some deliciously smelling toasts. Despite being on the verge of vomiting, he tries one and discovers that it’s just as delicious as it looks, meaning he tries another right after and they end up sharing breakfast on the floor. She sits down next to him as they go through six of them, two for him and four for her, with butter à la carte. It does make him feel better. Something tells him that it’s not the food, though, but her company that’s embedded with healing properties. He doesn’t mind as long as it keeps the sickness at bay and her face close to his.

“You look much better,” she points out while wiping her mouth with a napkin, “Rosy-cheeked and cute again.”

He smiles. She kisses the side of his face before getting up and moving back to the bathroom, resuming her morning routine from the point it got interrupted. He breathes in deeply, lost in the warm feeling expanding his chest and the warmer spot of skin that she kissed, oblivious to the dumbfounded smile permanently stuck on his face. He definitely feels much better.

In the original itinerary for this weekend, there’s nothing planned for Sunday afternoon. Thoughts of the party were so exciting at the time, while they were planning out what else to do for these two days, that the sleepover turned into a mere crashing place for everyone to collectively remedy their hangovers. Nothing aside from that was thought possible and now Emily has seven people sprawled all over her living room floor, tired and mellow, already reminiscing the events of last night. She would probably be concerned if her state wasn’t exactly like theirs, maybe even worse, with her boyfriend right next to her, caressing her hair. They’re back together again, apparently. Josh wants to roll his eyes at them but is too busy watching Sam run her fingers through his own hair.

They queue movies on Netflix for a long time, pretty much all day. Chris and Ashley make an attempt at cooking lunch at one point, brunch, which ends up just being mac-and-cheese with Pepsi for everybody. They don’t mind. Remaining unmoving in their individual spots on the couch or mattress for as long as possible is the highest priority today, regardless of the circumstance. They only get up to pee and bring water or something else to the living room. It’s a quiet Sunday spent with inside voices and a lot of cuddling that Josh doesn’t mind. Soft and calming and appreciated, despite his headache or the sick feeling at the back of his throat never really disappearing. He doesn’t get up to try and fix that, either, just stays warm in Sam’s arms, waiting for everything else to dissolve around him. He naps in the middle of every movie, missing and mixing plots, turning it all into a very long romcom to him with lots of random tears and kisses. He catches a comment about the cheesiness of the current one from Ashley before drifting back to sleep, wondering what Hannah would have said to her.

“You need to let them go,” Dr. Hill tells him next Wednesday, “You need to move on, Joshua. Accept the loss, hurt and grow.”

He’s been hurting too much already and doesn’t need this sort of bullshit to make it worse. What he needs right now is to numb it all away, not accept anything that’s not confirmed or make an effort to grow from it because he knows he doesn’t have the willpower to. Doesn’t have the strength required to.

“Your sisters are not coming back,” Dr. Hill says but he doesn’t know that. Nobody does. They could’ve been living off of the wildlife in Canada all this time, without any help and doing just fine. One day they might end up back at the lodge where they’ll meet the new owners and have a way to contact their family again, talk to Josh again. They might come home and he might see them again. Hoping for that is what’s been keeping him from altogether swallowing down an entire bottle of pills.

“I can’t treat your depression if you won’t help yourself,” Dr. Hill’s voice jabs him straight in the chest, setting his heart off on a rampage to pump all five liters of blood up to his head, painting his vision red.

“You think you’re such a great fucking doctor,” he says past gritted teeth, glaring through blood, “but you’re not fucking treating _anything_ in me. I don’t give a fuck about the depression, did you know that? It feels like nothing compared to what the visions make me feel—the psychosis or dementia or whatever. Why don’t you try treating _that_ for a change, huh? Like I’ve asked you to, so many times before? Have you even once _listened_ to me?” His voice rises a bit with each spoken word and he’s sitting on the edge of his chair, watching Dr. Hill’s stunned face across the desk. “I want to be _normal_ ,” he slams both hands on the wooden surface in front of him, startling the doctor, “I don’t want to _see them_ anymore. I don’t want to be reminded of them like this anymore, by these monsters, these creatures; they’re _not_ my sisters and I don’t want the two to correlate. I want to fix this and I want something that _will_ fix this, not fucking MAOIs that make me sicker and worse. Treat my fucking psychosis, Allan. Why do you keep ignoring it like it’s just going to fucking disappear? You know better than me that it’s not going to. You have a PhD in this shit so fucking use it. I’m _sick_ of crumbling down and having to start over. I’ve been through five different people in five different offices and I just want a treatment that works. I want to _heal_ —I’m tired of hurting. I’m tired.” The anger inside of him starts to flicker and subside as he leans back on his chair, covering his face with both hands. His breathing slowly comes back to normal, his heart calms down and he sighs. Exhales all of the energy from inside of him, leaving him limp against the back of the chair, empty, whimpering, “I’m just so tired.”

Dr. Hill prescribes him EST again by the end of the session, telling him that they’ll see how it goes and then treat him from there, from scratch, after he’s tried all methods available. Josh wants to punch him square in the face because that’s for _depression_ again, not psychosis, so he does. His knuckles collide with Dr. Hill’s nose, making a loud snapping sound that gets his blood pumping satisfaction through his veins. It only lasts a second until the man’s agonizing scream brings him back down. The sight of him covering his face, horrified, dripping blood down the front of his shirt is terrifying. Josh’s hands tremble. He’s immobile, frozen in place, clueless of what to do, what to say. The doctor is whimpering and coughing and hissing across from him and he’s standing there, doing nothing.

“Call an ambulance!” Dr. Hill yells at him, gesturing violently with his free hand.

Josh complies with shaky hands and a blurry vision.


	10. We'll live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Whenever I'm alone with you_  
>  _You make me feel like I am home again_  
>  _Whenever I'm alone with you_  
>  _You make me feel like I am whole again_  
>     
> Lovesong, The Cure

His parents meet him in front of the emergency room, sitting on a chair by the door with damp cheeks and a heavy chest. They don’t say anything. His mother sits down next to him and rubs his back with a hand, reassuringly, looking afraid, while his father walks in to talk with the doctor. He can hear their discussion from outside, Dr. Hill’s indignation and his father’s looping apologies. Dr. Hill suggests that they discontinue the treatment or find somebody else to fill in for him, saying that he can’t treat someone so uncooperative, who blatantly omits important information and ignores the prescription. His father is a schmoozing machine, apologizing on his behalf and trying to strike a midterm with the doctor, some sort of agreement to all of this. Josh sighs heavily, wishing his father would be interested in his side of the story, too. He can defend himself, he can explain. He has a reason and he wants it to be heard and that’s why he punched the doctor, because nobody listened. And nobody still does. It didn’t solve anything.

His parents don’t say a thing on the ride back home. Nothing was settled with the doctor yet, simply postponed as he isn’t in the position to negotiate right now. No date set for that to happen, either. Josh wonders if this incident will be added to his medical record and if he’ll really need another psychotherapist. His only thought is of disappointment because he believed that Dr. Hill would be the one to help him this time, really help him. But he was wrong; like all the others, Dr. Hill was deaf. Worse than the others, he was also blind. In Josh’s opinion, he was a waste of time, energy and hope. Just a big, disappointing waste. Disappointment that quickly turns into sorrow because now Josh probably needs to meet new therapist candidates that won’t want to take him. The longer his file becomes, the less people are willing to treat him. It makes his chest fold in on itself and his eyes glass over.

He’s crumbling down, piece by piece, with each step up to his bedroom, to the point he’s become a pile of debris when he reaches it. The door swings closed behind him and his bed is immediately covered in small pieces of him, deteriorating the longer it stays in contact with air. He sighs into the mattress once, twice, turning it into a groan, a scream with wet lashes pressed against his cheeks. His hands close in fists and he tugs on the expensive lining, hard, violently, hoping to rip it apart but not succeeding. His throat strains from shouting and he finally collapses, suffocating the sobs into the bed, swallowing hiccups. Limbs weak and tired, left to rot all around him, stranding a dead starfish above his mattress. He breaks.

The sun is far gone by the time he wakes up. Moving to a sitting position, he squints at the clock. It’s a quarter past seven and the house is silent. He runs a hand through his hair, sighing, feeling deserted. His throat is sore and he’s wearing shoes, still dressed to go out, so he kicks them off and tosses the shirt in a dark spot somewhere. He could take a shower and change but he just lies back in bed instead, unmotivated to leave its confinements. He watches the ceiling for a moment. The silence and darkness envelop him, bringing a growing sense of loneliness that upsets him. So he sits back up. Pulling his phone from his shorts, he goes through his contacts list to fix that. He scrolls down to S but comes across M first and stops there. He slides a thumb on Mike’s name instead of hers, listening to it beep in his ear. Mike picks up within a few rings but Josh cuts him off before he can say anything.

“Do you wanna know what happened that Thursday?” He says and he’s a little hoarse, so he clears his throat, making it hurt a bit. It’s fine.

“Yes,” comes Mike’s reply, almost instantaneous, so he starts from the beginning. He starts from before the cabin got sold, before Pelican Hill, before the beach house. He starts from the night that his sisters disappeared. And Mike listens.

Deep inside, Josh blames Mike the most out of everyone for what happened, but he’s never said a thing about it before. He’s never told this to anyone and who better than Mike himself to be the first to know? So Josh tells him everything. He curses him out and tells him exactly how he feels, how the thought of his sisters haunt him, literally haunt him, and how much it hurts. Thinking about them, talking about them, hoping for them. It hurts. It hurts because he couldn’t do anything, he was such an idiot. He and Chris passed out, two fucking idiots. His chest hurts from being opened up this way but he persists. He persists because Mike’s listening. Someone’s listening. He tells him about the prank that he didn’t go through with, the gigantic plans he had for it, the overwhelming sense of accomplishment and relief that would bring him. But also the fear of messing it up, hurting someone, and Dr. Hill’s discouragements. Dr. Hill. He tells him all of his thoughts about Dr. Hill, emphasizing the most recent ones: the breakdown at the office, the punch in the face and the end of his contract, the discontinuation of his treatment. A sob clogs up his throat at that, making it hard to explain to him the situation of his files and what that might mean for the next psychiatrist hunt.

“I’m a lost fucking cause,” he says around a whimper, bringing his free hand up to his face, “I’m done for, man. This is it.”

Mike is silent. The only sound being shared between them is his soft sniffles as he fails to keep tears at bay. A second passes and he’s not sure Mike’s there anymore, until he hears, “Don’t say that.” Dragging a hand down his face, he breathes in, deeply. Listening. “I know people that can help,” Mike continues tenderly, “You deserve better than Dr. Hill, you deserve someone who will actually treat you. I know a few candidates and I can get you their numbers by the end of this week.” His heart is three times its original size, swollen with hope and affection. The tears that dampen his cheeks stream down for another reason now. “You’re gonna be okay.”

The end of the call is messy. Messy with tears spilled in the middle of apologies and a warm chest enveloped in Mike’s endless reassurances. He can breathe again because he knows that Mike’s right. He knows that he’ll be okay for as long someone listens to him. For as long as he has friends like him. Mike, Chris, Sam. They’re there for him and he’s in good hands. In fact, he couldn’t be in better ones.

It takes him a moment to recollect himself from the call after it ends. He stays in bed, clutching the mute phone to his chest, thinking. Thinking and feeling and being _okay_. Blissfully, painlessly okay. He remains in place for quite a while, eventually glancing at the clock. It reads eight and he wonders if dinner was served tonight. If he missed it. If he should call take-out for one and have Chinese. His parents hate it which makes him really tempted to have it. But before doing anything stupid, he leaves his room to make sure that he actually did miss dinner. Just in case his mother left a plate for him in the microwave, something she wouldn’t like to see untouched in the morning. So he goes downstairs to check the kitchen.

Nothing. Empty kitchen, empty microwave and a silent dining room further ahead, presumably just as empty. He shrugs, wondering back to the foyer and pulling out his phone. His heart stings in a failed attempt not to care as he scrolls down through a gigantic list of Chinese restaurants to choose from. Just before he gets to randomly pick one, the doorbell rings. His head immediately connects that to the take-out even if his phone openly displays proof that he hasn’t even ordered yet. Tossing a quick glance up the stairs, he wonders if one of his parents will rescue him from having to answer the door. No sound is heard from the upper floors but he goes back to staring at his screen anyway, pretending that the door doesn’t need attending. It rings again and he frowns at the screen, tensing up. Nothing from upstairs. It rings again and, shit, he turns around to fucking answer.

Whatever had built inside of him instantly dissipates at Sam’s cheeky figure standing above his welcoming mat. His lungs fill up and his heart pumps quicker as he smiles, further opening the door for her.

“Hey, sexy thing,” she sing-songs while walking in, stopping only for a second to give him a peck and he can feel the heat radiating from his cheeks.

“Hey, sugar lips,” he replies back to her before closing the door, “what are you doing here?”

She twirls around at his question, grinning wider than before. She looks absolutely incandescent and it warms him up inside. He can feel his mood vastly improve just from her presence. “I wanted to surprise you,” she says and it’s as simple as that. He’s smitten.

“You did,” he says while stepping over to her with a smile as bright as hers, “I’m glad you did.”

Her eyes are fixed on his and he’s never seen them so lively, so brilliant. She’s beautiful and he needs to kiss her. Really kiss her.

Before he can lean down for that, his mother’s voice erases the idea from his head. “Samantha!” She exclaims from atop the stairs, stepping down in her silent slippers. Sam turns around from him to look at her, grinning wide.

“Melinda, good evening!” She moves swiftly up the stairs, meeting his mother halfway. They embrace and make small talk for a second, glancing back at Josh when mentioning him, making him groan inwardly. The two sound like old friends and he wouldn’t be surprised if Sam is closer to his mother than he is. That would be the most logical thing, actually.

“Are you staying for dinner?,” his mother asks and Sam raises her brows, “We’re a bit off schedule today because Bob and I were on business calls just now.” She makes an effort to look sheepish, although not trying very hard, which turns out kind of weird and not convincing. Before saying anything, Sam turns her head to give Josh a questioning look but he just glances blankly back at her, with no answer. That’s a choice for her to make alone and he wants no involvement in it.

She blinks at him for a second before glancing back at his mother, answering, “I’d love to!”

He honestly didn’t know that they would still have dinner. That was probably a lie, though, because it’s never happened before. It was most likely a makeshift excuse to please a guest, which is all they ever do. His mother, specially, lives to impress people and make it seem like she runs a perfect family. Talking about his sisters always ruins the mood and, if Josh has to guess, he’d say that that’s the reason they don’t have any framed pictures of them above countertops anymore. The real reason has nothing to do with the “growing exercise” that his mother’s always talking about, it’s just another way to impress strangers. Maybe besting other people is his mother’s coping mechanism. He can’t really judge her on that because his own is far less healthy than hers.

His mother continues down the stairs over to the kitchen, bidding them adieu for now, until dinnertime. Josh steps up to meet with Sam and take her hand, leading her to his room. Sam waves his mother goodbye while following him in tow. He isn’t looking but he’s sure that his mother must have made a face if Sam’s lightly flushed cheeks are anything to go by. The day his family don’t embarrass someone in front of him is the day that they have Jesus Christ over for supper.

“She looked at me, like,” Sam starts once they enter his room, walking over to the bed and taking a seat, “as if we were fucking or something.” She removes her shoes before scooting closer to the headboard, resting her back against it. Josh snorts out a laugh, roaming the floor for the shirt that he had discarded earlier, hopefully hiding his burning cheeks in the dark.

“Does she think that of anybody else, too?” She asks while pulling her knees closer to her chest, watching him. He finds the shirt but it’s a mess so he just takes a clean one out of the closet instead, putting it on.

“Chris, maybe. He told me she looks at him weird,” he walks over to the window, drawing the curtains so some light will shine into the room, “but that’s probably just because he’s acting weird all the time.”

Sam snickers on the mattress, giving him a cheeky grin while saying, “And _are_ you sleeping with Chris?”

He walks back over to the bed and takes the seat next to her, straddling it. She’s grinning at him, wide. He holds both shoulders up in a shrug and fakes shyness. “He doesn’t want me talking about it,” he says, making her laugh.

It’s silent for a second. Her laughter dies down and they just sit there, in comfortable white noise, grinning at each other. She takes his hand and he scoots closer to her, huddled up by her side. He kisses her cheek once, twice, then her jaw, then her neck. She laces their fingers and turns to look at him.

“I have a question,” she says and her voice is soft, so soft that he could almost kiss it, too. He lifts a brow at her, keeping quiet, waiting for her to continue. “Why did you lie to me?” Her eyes lock on his and his blood turns to ice. He blinks once, smiling a bit.

“What?,” he says silently, ignoring the cold spreading from his heart, “About what?”

She breaks eye contact, glancing down at his left arm while running a palm along its length, underneath the shirt sleeve. His smile falters and flees. “You lied by omission,” she says and she’s right. Her tone is delicate and loving and he wishes it was angry instead. She has all the reason to be angry and upset at him, for more than just this, but no reason to be this nice. This caring. He swallows thickly, looking away.

“It’s stupid,” he says into the dark, watching her from his peripheral vision, “how did you notice?”

She holds his arm firmly and her eyes are on his face but he can’t bring himself to look directly back at them. He watches her hands caress his skin instead. “You opened the door shirtless, you idiot,” her voice holds nothing short of love and affection and he mentally slaps himself. He didn’t think she’d notice—he didn’t know it was _her._ “Plus, they look too real to be fake.”

His eyes flick up at her then, full with passion, and his lips part with a comeback on them but she shushes him with a finger, saying, “Not that you can’t pull it off, of course.” The burning passion dissipates in a sigh as he rolls his eyes.

She’s still looking at him, waiting for an answer. Curious, but not urging; concerned. She wants to know what happened, what’s _been_ happening, but she won’t force it out of him. She asked and if he says no, she won’t press him. She’ll leave it be. And he wants to tell; more than anything, he wants her to know. If this between them is the start of something, then she needs to know. She’s strong and can take it but more importantly, she needs to know exactly what she’s getting herself into. So he inhales deeply, preparing himself, and tells her. He tells her what he told Mike earlier, except less in a panic now. Calmer, more composed. He knows the speech this time around. It still hurts and bleeds but she’s listening, so he goes through with it. The whole of it. Her face tells him that she’s hurting, too, by empathy and, somehow, it relieves him. He’s sharing the worry and pain and she’s bearing it with him, together. She holds his arm firmly, staring deep into his eyes, unflinching, listening. Listening and feeling and experiencing this with him.

“I called Mike earlier,” he says at the end of the speech, taking her hands in both of his, “and he said he can fill Dr. Hill’s spot with someone competent.” She rubs his hands, smiling sweetly up at him, reassuring. He mirrors it unconsciously. “You know, I believe him,” he says genuinely, like he’s never been more sincere in his life, “I believe everything’s gonna be okay now.”

Those last words have an effect on her, a bigger one. They make her eyes dampen and shine and bring a wide smile to her face, happy and relieved. She grabs his face and kisses him. Once, twice, three times—smiling. They smile against each other’s skin, kissing around a laugh, and he’s happy. He’s really happy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's officially done! Thanks everyone for reading and a special thanks to Iva and Lily for supporting me through this. I hope you all had a good time. The comments really made my week and I couldn't be more grateful for them. ♥
> 
> If you want to find me on tumblr my url is sea-demons.


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